Frontal Cortex

Frontal Lobes
Traditionally considered to be the seat of
intelligence.
This is probably because:
The frontal cortex is the most recent to evolve.
Humans have particularly large frontal lobes
compared to other animals.
The frontal cortex is the brain lobe least
amenable to quantitative testing.

Divisions of the Frontal Cortex
1. Motor cortex
2. Premotor cortex
3. Prefrontal cortex
4. Orbitofrontal & Ventromedial prefrontal
cortex
5. Anterior cingulate gyrus
6. Brocas area
Divisions of the Frontal Cortex
Primary Motor Cortex
Prefrontal Cortex

Working memory
Refers to the capacity to keep track of and update
information at the moment
E.g., 7 + - 2
Patricia Goldman-Rakic
ODR paradigm (oculomotor delayed-response)
Electrodes record activity from monkey neurons
during the task.
Different neurons respond to different task
characteristics.
Regional Specialization:

1. Superior prefrontal
convexity (dorsal)
spatial location

2. Inferior prefrontal
convexity (ventral)
objects, faces

Impaired Response Inhibition
Stroop
Green
Yellow
Red
Purple
Blue
Red
Black
Yellow
Orange
Blue
Purple
Red
Green
Black
Blue
Yellow
Green
Red
Purple
Blue
Blue
Brown
Blue
Red
Green
Green
Yellow
Red
Yellow
Orange
Blue
Red
Green
Yellow
Black
Yellow
Orange
Red
Purple
Blue
Purple
Red
Green
Black
Blue
Yellow
Green
Red
Purple
Blue
Green
Yellow
Red
Yellow
Orange
Blue
Brown
Blue
Red
Green
Perseveration
Carries timing task with frontals
Shifting Difficulty
Reduced fluency
Generate animals beginning with C

Difficulty generating hypotheses and
flexibly shifting to new task demands

Wisconsin Card Sort Task
(WCST)
Test Cards

Wisconsin Card Sorting Task
(WCST)
Alternating &
Sequencing Deficits
***VIDEO: Picks Disease

Alternating &
Sequencing Deficits
1. Motor
2. Planning & organizing tasks
3. Developing strategies for learning
new tasks
Frontal Eye Fields
Exploratory Eye
Movement Deficits

Other Dorsolateral Deficits
1. Pseudo-depression
2. Perceptual deficits
3. Corollary discharge
Mirror Neurons:
Characteristic Firing Properties
of Inferior DLPFC

Motor
Visual
Somatosensory
Body-part centered
(Fadiga et al., 2000)
Mirror Property
of Human DLPFC
(Iacoboni et al., 1999)
Orbitofrontal &
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex

Phineas
Gage

Months later, however, Gage began to have startling changes in
personality and in mood.

He became extravagant and anti-social, a fullmouth and a liar
with bad manners, and could no longer hold a job or plan his
future.

He was quick to anger and often got into fights.
The Case of Phineas Gage
An explosion projected a tamping rod through his left cheek.
Miraculously, he recovered and had normal intellegence.
"The equilibrium between his intellectual faculties and animal
propensities seems to have been destroyed. - Harlow
This is hypothesized to occur as
a result of impoverished social
learning as a result of failure to
make appropriate mappings
between events and their
outcomes.
Personality Changes
1. Lack of concern for the future
Consistently poor decision-making
Impulsiveness
2. Failure to obey rules
3. Lack of social graces
4. Disposed to imitation


Personality Changes II
1. Mild euphoria
2. Silliness & facetiousness

3. Pseudo-depression
4. Irritability


Orbitofrontal Cortex
Empathy
Decision-Making
Reinforcement Value
of Sensory Stimuli
Orbitofrontal Cortex
1. Secondary odor & taste cortices
2. Deficits in perceiving auditory or visual
emotional cues
Can be Modality Specific
3. Cells respond to the rewarding or aversive nature
of stimuli
Primary reinforcers
Learned (secondary) Reinforcers

Cells respond better to real than to 2-D faces
Cells respond preferentially to specific faces
Cells change their response to objects when reward associations change
Anterior Cingulate
Anterior Cingulate
Bilateral lesions produce:
1. Akinetic mutisminability to initiate speech
2. Minimal movement
3. Incontinence
4. No emotional display to pain
5. Profound apathy
6. Indifference
***Striatum Pict Sagittal?
5 Frontal-Subcortical Circuits
1. Motor
2. Oculomotor
3. Dorsolateral prefrontal
4. Lateral orbitofrontal
5. Anterior cingulate
Frontal-Subcortical Circuits II
Frontal lobe

Striatum (caudate, putamen, ventral striatum)

Globus pallidus & Substantia nigra

Specific thalamic nuclei

Frontal lobe

Summary I
Motor cortex
1. Loss of voluntary control over a specific body area
2. Deficits of fine motor control
3. Reduction of strength & speed

Premotor cortex
1. Impairs the integration of sequences into fluid actions
2. Reflex changes (i.e., grasp reflex)
Summary II
Prefrontal cortex
1. Working memory problems
(superiorwhere; inferiorwhat)
2. Difficulty generating new items or hypotheses
3. Lack of inhibition
4. Perseveration
5. Difficulty planning sequences or organizing
strategies
6. Eye movement deficits
Summary III
Orbitofrontal &
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex
1. Personality & emotional changes
2. Disregard for rules
3. Imitation
4. No IQ or dorsolateral problems

Anterior cingulate
1. Problems with initiating movements
2. Apathy
3. No emotional response to pain