Badre David, Desrochers Theresa M
Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI, United States; Carney Institute for Brain Science, Brown University, Providence, RI, United States.
Carney Institute for Brain Science, Brown University, Providence, RI, United States; Department of Neuroscience, Brown University, Providence, RI, United States.
Handb Clin Neurol. 2019;163:165-177. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-804281-6.00009-4.
Cognitive control refers to our ability to choose courses of thought and action that achieve our goals over habitual but contextually inappropriate ones. Hierarchical control problems are those in which multiple goals or contextual contingency must be managed at once and related to one another. In the open-ended complexity of the real world, hierarchical control arguably characterizes most of the problems faced by our control systems. And, it is these cases of hierarchical control where patients with damage to executive systems are most apt to fail, even those that perform well on simplified laboratory tasks. In this chapter, we consider the functional organization of frontal brain systems that support hierarchical cognitive control. We focus on two particular cases of hierarchical control. First, we discuss a line of work testing how managing multiple contingencies en route to a response relates to processing along the rostrocaudal axis of frontal cortex. Second, we consider cases of sequential tasks that require monitoring and behaving according to a series of tasks performed in time. In this latter case, we focus on the particular role of rostrolateral prefrontal cortex. We conclude with considerations of future directions of basic and clinically relevant research in this domain.
认知控制指的是我们选择思维和行动过程的能力，这些过程能实现我们的目标，而非那些习惯性但在情境中不适当的目标。分层控制问题是指那些必须同时管理多个目标或情境偶然性并使其相互关联的问题。在现实世界的开放式复杂性中，可以说分层控制是我们的控制系统所面临的大多数问题的特征。而且，正是在这些分层控制的情况下，执行系统受损的患者最容易失败，即使是那些在简化的实验室任务中表现良好的患者。在本章中，我们将探讨支持分层认知控制的额叶脑系统的功能组织。我们关注分层控制的两个特定案例。首先，我们讨论一系列研究工作，这些研究测试了在做出反应的过程中管理多个偶然性与沿额叶皮层的前后轴进行处理之间的关系。其次，我们考虑需要根据一系列按时间执行的任务进行监测和行为的顺序任务案例。在后一种情况下，我们关注前额叶外侧皮层的特殊作用。我们最后思考了该领域基础研究和临床相关研究的未来方向。
