Abstract
Medial prefrontal cortical (mPFC) functions may be aspects of ventral or dorsal control pathways, depending on the position along a rostral–ventral to caudal–dorsal gradient within medial cortex that may mirror the pattern of interconnections between cortex and striatum. Rostral–ventral mPFC is connected to ventral striatum and posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus are connected with dorsal striatum. Reentrant ventral (limbic), central (associative), and dorsal (motor) corticostriatal loops pass information from ventral-to-dorsal striatum, shifting hedonic processing toward habitual action. Splitting up unexpected occurrences (positive surprise) from non-occurrences (negative surprise) instead of splitting according to valence mirrors the importance of negative surprise in dorsal habitual control which is insensitive to the valence of outcomes. The importance of positive surprise and valence increases toward the rostral–ventral end of the gradient in mPFC and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. We discuss paradigms that may help to disentangle positive from negative surprise. Moreover, we think that the framework of the functional gradient may help giving various functions in mPFC their place in a larger scheme.
Highlights
In a recent issue of Nature Neuroscience, Alexander and Brown (2011) presented a computational model that suggests that seemingly diverse medial prefrontal cortex or dorsal anterior cingulate cortex responses may be explained by a single construct, “negative surprise,” which occurs when actions do not produce the expected outcome
The simulation results demonstrated that a single term, not reflecting the valence of the outcome, but reflecting the surprise related to the non-occurrence of a predicted event, can capture a broad range of cognitive control, and performance monitoring effects from various research methodologies
Support has been found for interactions between inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and dorsal frontal areas, where IFG implements reactive immediate action according to the information conveyed by concomitant input signals, while dorsal frontal areas implement episodic motivation control: sustained control over behavioral episodes according to information conveyed by temporally remote contextual events (Kouneiher et al, 2009)
Summary
In a recent issue of Nature Neuroscience, Alexander and Brown (2011) presented a computational model that suggests that seemingly diverse medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) or dorsal anterior cingulate cortex responses may be explained by a single construct, “negative surprise,” which occurs when actions do not produce the expected outcome. The dorsal pathway, including mPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and precuneus, was adapted to control learning and behavior in high-predictable and stable environments.
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