Department of Psychology, Queens College, The City University of New York, Queens, NY, USA.
Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; China National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing, China.
Neuroimage. 2019 Jul 15;195:490-504. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.02.042. Epub 2019 Feb 21.
Cognitive control, with a limited capacity, is a core process in human cognition for the coordination of thoughts and actions. Although the regions involved in cognitive control have been identified as the cognitive control network (CCN), it is still unclear whether a specific region of the CCN serves as a bottleneck limiting the capacity of cognitive control (CCC). Here, we used a perceptual decision-making task with conditions of high cognitive load to challenge the CCN and to assess the CCC in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. We found that the activation of the right anterior insular cortex (AIC) of the CCN increased monotonically as a function of cognitive load, reached its plateau early, and showed a significant correlation to the CCC. In a subsequent study of patients with unilateral lesions of the AIC, we found that lesions of the AIC were associated with a significant impairment of the CCC. Simulated lesions of the AIC resulted in a reduction of the global efficiency of the CCN in a network analysis. These findings suggest that the AIC, as a critical hub in the CCN, is a bottleneck of cognitive control.
认知控制是人类认知协调思想和行动的核心过程，其能力有限。虽然已经确定了涉及认知控制的区域为认知控制网络（CCN），但仍不清楚 CCN 的特定区域是否作为限制认知控制能力（CCC）的瓶颈。在这里，我们使用具有高认知负荷条件的知觉决策任务来挑战 CCN，并在功能磁共振成像研究中评估 CCC。我们发现，CCN 的右侧前脑岛皮层（AIC）的激活随着认知负荷单调增加，早期达到平台期，并与 CCC 呈显著相关。在对 AIC 单侧病变患者的后续研究中，我们发现 AIC 的病变与 CCC 的显著损伤有关。AIC 的模拟病变导致网络分析中 CCN 的全局效率降低。这些发现表明，AIC 作为 CCN 的关键枢纽，是认知控制的瓶颈。
