Differential activation of the human orbital, mid-ventrolateral, and mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during the processing of visual stimuli

摘要

There is considerable uncertainty about the precise functionalcontribution of the different parts of the prefrontal cortex tomnemonic processing. Changes in regional cerebral blood flowwere measured with positron emission tomography in normal humansubjects exposed to abstract visual designs under various conditions.It was demonstrated that the processing of stimuli that deviate fromexpectations involves selectively the orbitofrontal cortex, namely thepart of the frontal cortex that is preferentially linked with thelimbic system. By contrast, when the subject is making an explicitdecision on the contents of memory (e.g., judgments of relativestimulus familiarity), the mid-ventrolateral prefrontal cortex isinvolved. The mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is engaged whenmonitoring of information within working memory is required.