Collaborative roles of Temporoparietal Junction and Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Different Types of Behavioural Flexibility

Shisei Tei,Jukka-Pekka Kauppi,Jun Miyata,Toshiya Murai,Nobuhito Abe,Wouter Van Den Bos,Kathryn F Jankowski,Junya Fujino,Hidehiko Takahashi,Genichi Sugihara,Ryosaku Kawada

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-06662-6

Abstract

Behavioural flexibility is essential for everyday life. This involves shifting attention between different perspectives. Previous studies suggest that flexibility is mainly subserved by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, although rarely emphasized, the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is frequently recruited during flexible behaviour. A crucial question is whether TPJ plays a role in different types of flexibility, compared to its limited role in perceptual flexibility. We hypothesized that TPJ activity during diverse flexibility tasks plays a common role in stimulus-driven attention-shifting, thereby contributing to different types of flexibility, and thus the collaboration between DLPFC and TPJ might serve as a more appropriate mechanism than DLPFC alone. We used fMRI to measure DLPFC/TPJ activity recruited during moral flexibility, and examined its effect on other domains of flexibility (economic/perceptual). Here, we show the additional, yet crucial role of TPJ: a combined DLPFC/TPJ activity predicted flexibility, regardless of domain. Different types of flexibility might rely on more basic attention-shifting, which highlights the behavioural significance of alternatives.

Highlights

Previous research suggests that behavioural/cognitive flexibility is subserved by a common prefrontal cognitive control system
We studied the mediating effect of R-temporoparietal junction (TPJ) activity on the relationship between R-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity and flexibility across three distinct domains, which are all involved in thinking about conflicting perspectives simultaneously[2]
Because these results are beyond the scope of our current study, further analyses are focused on our a priori region of interest (ROI)

Summary

Introduction

Previous research suggests that behavioural/cognitive flexibility is subserved by a common prefrontal cognitive control system. We studied the mediating effect of R-TPJ activity on the relationship between R-DLPFC activity and flexibility across three distinct domains (moral, economic, and perceptual), which are all involved in thinking about conflicting perspectives simultaneously[2]. One CR meant that subjects chose ‘wrong’ when they evaluated whether moral actions were right or wrong (R/W), but flexibly changed to ‘yes’ when they evaluated whether they would or would not conduct the same actions via cost-benefit (C/B) considerations through attention-shifting[17]. As a result, thinking of conducting such moral violation involved flexible switching of these conflicting perspectives simultaneously, prompting potential shifting to alternative decision choice for welfare maximization[17]. In effect, accepting unfair offers involved flexible switching of these conflicting perspectives simultaneously, which allows shifting towards alternative decisional options. Perceptual flexibility was measured by the number of categories achieved (CA) during the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), which is a well-established task for measuring behavioural flexibility in terms of attention set-shifting[9]

Methods

Results

Conclusion