Elsevier

NeuroImage

Volume 46, Issue 1, 15 May 2009, Pages 338-342
NeuroImage

Commentary
Left, but not right, rostrolateral prefrontal cortex meets a stringent test of the relational integration hypothesis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.01.064Get rights and content

Abstract

Much of what is known about the function of human rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC; lateral Brodmann area 10) has been pieced together from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies over the past decade. Christoff and colleagues previously reported on an fMRI localizer task involving relational integration that reliably engages RLPFC in individual participants (Smith, R., Keramatian, K., and Christoff, K. (2007). Localizing the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex at the individual level. NeuroImage, 36(4), 1387–1396). Here, we report on a modified version of this task that better controls for lower-level processing demands in the relational integration condition. Using identical stimulus arrays for our experimental and control conditions, we find that right RLPFC is sensitive to increasing relational processing demands, without being engaged specifically during relational integration. By contrast, left RLPFC is engaged only when participants must consider the higher-order relationship between two individual relations. We argue that the integration of disparate mental relations by left RLPFC is a fundamental process that supports higher-level cognition in humans.

Section snippets

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Kalina Christoff and Ian Dobbins for helpful discussions. This research was funded by a Program Project from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS040813-06), headed by Dr. Mark D'Esposito.

References (31)

  • BurmanK.J. et al.

    Cytoarchitectonic subdivisions of the dorsolateral frontal cortex of the marmoset monkey (Callithrix jacchus), and their projections to dorsal visual areas

    J. Comp. Neurol.

    (2006)
  • ChristoffK. et al.

    The frontopolar cortex and human cognition: evidence for a rostrocaudal hierarchical organization within the human prefrontal cortex

    Psychobiology

    (2002)
  • ChristoffK. et al.

    Evaluating self-generated information: anterior prefrontal contributions to human cognition

    Behav. Neurosci.

    (2003)
  • CroneE.A. et al.

    Neurocognitive development of relational reasoning

    Dev. Sci.

    (2008)
  • DobbinsI.G. et al.

    Isolating rule- versus evidence-based prefrontal activity during episodic and lexical discrimination: a functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of detection theory distinctions

    Cereb. Cortex

    (2005)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text