Title Understanding the prefrontal cortex : selective advantage, connectivity, and neural operations / Richard E. Passingham

Edition First edition Published Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2021

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Description 1 online resource (xxviii, 490 pages) : illustrations (some color) Series Oxford psychology series ; 53 Oxford psychology series ; no. 53. Contents Evolution of the prefrontal cortex in non-human primates -- Medial prefrontal cortex -- Orbital prefrontal cortex -- Caudal prefrontal cortex -- Dorsal prefrontal cortex -- Ventral prefrontal cortex -- Prefrontal cortex -- Evolution of the prefrontal cortex in the hominins -- Human prefrontal cortex -- Human prefrontal cortex Summary "The primate prefrontal cortex sits at the top of the sensory, motor, and outcome processing hierarchies of the neocortex. It transforms sensory inputs into motor outputs, determining the response that is appropriate given the current context and desired outcome. This transformation involves conditional rules. The dorsal prefrontal cortex supports the learning of behavioural sequences, where the next action is conditional on the previous one. The ventral prefrontal cortex supports associations between objects, where the choice of one object is conditional on the presence of another object. However, because hierarchical processing supports the extraction of abstract representations, the primate prefrontal cortex is able to represent conditional rules that are abstract, meaning that they apply irrespective of the specific inputs. The selective advantage is that by learning these rules, primates can solve new problems rapidly when they have the same conditional logic as prior problems. The human prefrontal cortex has the same fundamental organization as in other primates. The dorsal prefrontal cortex supports the understanding of sequences and the ventral prefrontal cortex supports the ability to learn semantic associations. Thus the human prefrontal cortex has co-opted and elaborated mechanisms that were present in ancestral primates. These mechanisms can be used for new ends. For example, words have been associated with objects so as to communicate with others. This means that to understand human intelligence it is necessary to take into account the fact that the abstract rules are transmitted verbally from one generation to another"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from PDF title page (Oxford Scholarship Online, viewed March 25, 2022) Subject Prefrontal cortex. Brain -- Evolution. Neurobiology. Brain. Prefrontal Cortex Brain Neurobiology brains. Brain Brain -- Evolution Neurobiology Prefrontal cortex Form Electronic book ISBN 9780192582997 0192582992 9780191880094 0191880094

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