Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Action sets and decisions in the medial frontal cortex
Section snippets
The ACC and lateral PFC: working memory and task switching
It has been argued on the basis of meta-analyses of human imaging results that the ACC, like the lateral PFC, has a role in executive control 7, 8. Although it is true that humans activate both regions during working memory tasks [9] lesions of their homologues in the macaque brain have different effects. Whereas dorsolateral PFC lesions cause a profound working memory impairment [10] ACC lesions have little effect 11, 12, 13. Procyk and Joseph [14] have also questioned the degree to which
Errors and conflict in the ACC and SFG
Niki and Watanabe [27] first recorded changes in the activity of single ACC neurons when a monkey made errors. An error-correlated change is also present in the aggregate activity of many ACC neurons and can be recorded as a surface negative field potential when electrodes are placed beneath the dura of the macaque ACC [28]. An event related potential (ERP), called the error related negativity (ERN), can be recorded with electrodes on the human scalp, with a similar time course, peaking between
The ACC and the coding of action outcomes
Despite preoccupation with the errors vs conflict-monitoring debate it is now clear that the ACC has a broad role in encoding the relationship between an action and the reinforcement value of its outcome even when the outcome is a positive reward and not an error. It is true that macaque ACC sulcal neurons respond when actions lead to errors or when reinforcement is not delivered but similar or higher proportions of ACC sulcal neurons also respond to the delivery of positive reinforcers [40].
The ACC and decisions about the values of actions
The ACC might not just encode which outcome is expected from an action and whether the action is expected to lead to an error. It might also be a crucial part of a system for encoding whether or not an action is worth performing given the value of the expected outcome and the cost of performing the action. Evidence that the ACC encodes the value of outcomes comes from scalp recordings of ERPs with ACC dipole sources [53]. Human subjects picked one of two numbered panels and received either a
The SFG and task control
The SFG role in task control and the selection of action sets can be contrasted with that of the dorsal premotor cortex which selects single actions even in the absence of response conflict [57]. The SFG, on the other hand, may not be needed when a single action is selected but it is necessary when the set of action selection rules themselves are changed or when they are first selected. Activation centred on the pre-SMA region of human SFG can be recorded when subjects are instructed to switch
The SFG and movement sequences
Several divisions of primate SFG have a role in movement sequencing 64, 65. The initiation or changing of what might be called an ‘action set’, a set of rules for selecting responses, may be a common denominator to the SFG's role in both movement sequencing and task switching. In most task switching paradigms the action set is a set of stimulus–response selection rules whereas in sequence paradigms the action set is a set or order of response–response selection rules.
Shima et al. trained
Conclusions
The ACC does not exert supervisory executive control over behaviour in the same manner as lateral PFC but it does detect when actions have led to errors. In addition, any account of medial frontal function is incomplete without reference to the monitoring of response conflict before error commission but the crucial region might be in the SFG. It is clear, however, that error detection is just one aspect of a more general ACC role in associating actions with their reinforcement consequences even
Acknowledgements
Funded by the MRC and by the Royal Society (M.F.S.R.) and Wellcome Trust (M.E.W. and D.M.B.).
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