Divided Representation of Concurrent Goals in the Human Frontal Lobes

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 328; no. 5976; pp. 360 - 363
• Main Authors: Charron, Sylvain, Koechlin, Etienne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Association for the Advancement of Science 16.04.2010; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Brain; Brain Mapping; Cues; Female; Frontal lobe; Frontal Lobe - physiology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Goals; Humans; image analysis; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medical imaging; Motivation; Neuropsychology; Neurosciences; Prefrontal cortex; Prefrontal Cortex - physiology; Psychomotor Performance; Reward; Rewards; Task Performance and Analysis; Ventral Tegmental Area - physiology; Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs; Young Adult; Human; Frontal lobe; Imaging; Central nervous system; Frontal cortex; Prefrontal cortex; Reward; Encephalon
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1183614

The anterior prefrontal cortex (APC) confers on humans the ability to simultaneously pursue several goals. How does the brain's motivational system, including the medial frontal cortex (MFC), drive the pursuit of concurrent goals? Using brain imaging, we observed that the left and right MFC, which jointly drive single-task performance according to expected rewards, divide under dual-task conditions: While the left MFC encodes the rewards driving one task, the right MFC concurrently encodes those driving the other task. The same dichotomy was observed in the lateral frontal cortex, whereas the APC combined the rewards driving both tasks. The two frontal lobes thus divide for representing simultaneously two concurrent goals coordinated by the APC. The human frontal function seems limited to driving the pursuit of two concurrent goals simultaneously.