Causal evidence for lateral prefrontal cortex dynamics supporting cognitive control

Abstract
Data availability
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Abstract

The lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) is essential for higher-level cognition, but how its interactions support cognitive control remains elusive. Previously (Nee and D'Esposito, 2016), dynamic causal modeling (DCM) indicated that mid LPFC integrates abstract, rostral and concrete, caudal influences to inform context-appropriate action. Here, we use continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) to causally test this model. cTBS was applied to three LPFC sites and a control site in counterbalanced sessions. Behavioral modulations resulting from cTBS were largely predicted by information flow within the previously estimated DCM. However, cTBS to caudal LPFC unexpectedly impaired processes presumed to involve rostral LPFC. Adding a pathway from caudal to mid-rostral LPFC significantly improved the model fit and accounted for the observed behavioral findings. These data provide causal evidence for LPFC dynamics supporting cognitive control and demonstrate the utility of combining DCM with causal manipulations to test and refine models of cognition.

Data availability

The following data sets were generated

1. Derek Evan Nee
2. Mark D'Esposito
(2017) Causal Evidence for Lateral Prefrontal Cortex Dynamics Supporting Cognitive Control
Publicly available on Oneshare.

https://oneshare.cdlib.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.15146/R3Q37R

Article and author information

Author details

Derek Evan Nee

Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, United States

For correspondence
derek.evan.nee@gmail.com

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7858-6871
Mark D'Esposito

Department of Psychology, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (F32 NS0802069)

Derek Evan Nee

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (P01 NS040813)

Mark D'Esposito

National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH063901)

Mark D'Esposito

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: Informed consent was obtained in accordance with the Committee for Protection of Human Subjects at the University of California, Berkeley under protocol number 2010-02-781.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.