Functional Imaging of the Human FEF

人类 FEF 的功能成像

• 批准号: 7094697
• 负责人: CLAYTON E CURTIS
• 金额: $ 32.76万
• 依托单位: NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-04-05 至 2011-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7094697
• 关键词: attention; behavior; brain; clinical research; human; lead; memory; model; short term memory; thinking

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is critical for adaptive higher-order cognitive behaviors that are compromised by a wide variety of mental health disorders including schizophrenia, (ADHD), substance abuse disorders, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease, and AIDS-related dementia. A better understanding of basic neural mechanisms will lead to improved diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic procedures. Although the PFC is critical for the planning, maintenance, selection, and execution of willed behavior, we know very little about the mechanisms by which it accomplishes these goals. Barriers to our progress in this regard include 1) a poor understanding of how the crucial animal work on PFC functions translates to the human species we are trying to understand, and 2) a lack of understanding of how the PFC influences ongoing behavior through its functional interactions with other brain areas. Here we propose a divide-and-conquer strategy for better understanding the functions of the PFC. In AIM 1, we will localize a key portion of the PFC, the human homolog of the monkey frontal eye field (FEF) and treat it as a model system for detailed study of PFC functions. We strategically chose the FEF as our model because 1) unlike other PFC areas, we have methods for localizing it in humans, 2) data from monkey FEF, as compared to other PFC areas, offer testable predictions about the functional homologies between the species, and most importantly 3) the FEF is implicated in many of the same high-level cognitive behaviors that the PFC in general is implicated. We will study the mechanisms that the human FEF uses for planning, attention, memory, and selection. Working within a better-defined and constrained system like the oculomotor system may quickly lead to mechanistic accounts of these functions that may be less tenable in a more complicated and less understood system like the PFC as a whole. Although the PFC is thought to influence ongoing behavior through its functional interactions with other brain areas, there is a dearth of evidence to support this theory. In AIM 2, we will use fMRI to measure functional interactions between the PFC and other brain areas that together may form networks supporting the critical behaviors. Together, the two AIMS embrace both functional specialization at the local level and distributed processing at the network level and will allow us to test critical hypotheses about how the PFC supports intention, attention, and working memory.

描述（由申请人提供）：前额皮质 (PFC) 对于适应性高阶认知行为至关重要，这些行为会受到多种精神健康障碍的影响，包括精神分裂症 (ADHD)、药物滥用障碍、阿尔茨海默病和帕金森病，以及与艾滋病有关的痴呆症。更好地理解基本神经机制将改善诊断、预后和治疗程序。尽管前额皮层对于意志行为的规划、维持、选择和执行至关重要，但我们对其实现这些目标的机制知之甚少。我们在这方面取得进展的障碍包括 1) 对 PFC 功能的关键动物作用如何转化为我们试图了解的人类物种缺乏了解，以及 2) 对 PFC 如何通过其功能影响持续行为缺乏了解与其他大脑区域的相互作用。在这里，我们提出了一种分而治之的策略，以更好地理解 PFC 的功能。在 AIM 1 中，我们将定位 PFC 的关键部分，即猴子额叶眼场 (FEF) 的人类同源物，并将其视为详细研究 PFC 功能的模型系统。我们战略性地选择 FEF 作为我们的模型，因为 1）与其他 PFC 区域不同，我们有在人类中定位它的方法，2）与其他 PFC 区域相比，来自猴子 FEF 的数据提供了有关物种之间功能同源性的可测试预测，最重要的是 3) FEF 与 PFC 所涉及的许多相同的高级认知行为有关。我们将研究人类 FEF 用于规划、注意力、记忆和选择的机制。在像动眼神经系统这样更明确和受约束的系统中工作可能很快就会导致对这些功能的机械解释，而这些功能在像整个前额叶皮层这样更复杂和更难理解的系统中可能不太站得住脚。尽管前额皮质被认为通过与其他大脑区域的功能相互作用来影响持续的行为，但缺乏证据支持这一理论。在 AIM 2 中，我们将使用功能磁共振成像来测量 PFC 和其他大脑区域之间的功能相互作用，这些区域一起可能形成支持关键行为的网络。这两个 AIMS 共同包含本地级别的功能专业化和网络级别的分布式处理，并使我们能够测试有关 PFC 如何支持意图、注意力和工作记忆的关键假设。