Schuck Nicolas W, Gaschler Robert, Wenke Dorit, Heinzle Jakob, Frensch Peter A, Haynes John-Dylan, Reverberi Carlo
Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany; Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany; Department of Psychology, Universität Koblenz-Landau, 76829 Landau in der Pfalz, Germany.
Neuron. 2015 Apr 8;86(1):331-40. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.03.015. Epub 2015 Mar 26.
Many daily behaviors require us to actively focus on the current task and ignore all other distractions. Yet, ignoring everything else might hinder the ability to discover new ways to achieve the same goal. Here, we studied the neural mechanisms that support the spontaneous change to better strategies while an established strategy is executed. Multivariate neuroimaging analyses showed that before the spontaneous change to an alternative strategy, medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) encoded information that was irrelevant for the current strategy but necessary for the later strategy. Importantly, this neural effect was related to future behavioral changes: information encoding in MPFC was changed only in participants who eventually switched their strategy and started before the actual strategy change. This allowed us to predict spontaneous strategy shifts ahead of time. These findings suggest that MPFC might internally simulate alternative strategies and shed new light on the organization of PFC.
许多日常行为要求我们积极专注于当前任务并忽略所有其他干扰因素。然而，忽略其他所有因素可能会阻碍发现实现同一目标的新方法的能力。在此，我们研究了在执行既定策略时支持自发转向更好策略的神经机制。多变量神经成像分析表明，在自发转向替代策略之前，内侧前额叶皮层（MPFC）编码的信息与当前策略无关，但对后续策略是必要的。重要的是，这种神经效应与未来的行为变化相关：只有最终改变策略且在实际策略改变之前就开始改变的参与者，MPFC中的信息编码才会发生变化。这使我们能够提前预测自发的策略转变。这些发现表明，MPFC可能在内部模拟替代策略，并为前额叶皮层的组织提供新的线索。
