Dissociable Roles of the Dorsolateral and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Human Categorization
Name
e2343232024.full.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.66 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
3e94732d0591fc95c18830404c97e307
Author(s)
Broschard, Matthew B
Turner, Brandon M
Tranel, Daniel
Freeman, John H
Date Issued
August 21, 2024
Journal
The Journal of Neuroscience
Publisher
Society for Neuroscience
Citation
Matthew B. Broschard, Brandon M. Turner, Daniel Tranel, John H. Freeman, Journal of Neuroscience 21 August 2024, 44 (34) e2343232024.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Models of human categorization predict the prefrontal cortex (PFC) serves a central role in category learning. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) have been implicated in categorization; however, it is unclear whether both are critical for categorization and whether they support unique functions. We administered three categorization tasks to patients with PFC lesions (mean age, 69.6 years; 5 men, 5 women) to examine how the prefrontal subregions contribute to categorization. These included a rule-based (RB) task that was solved via a unidimensional rule, an information integration (II) task that was solved by combining information from two stimulus dimensions, and a deterministic/probabilistic (DP) task with stimulus features that had varying amounts of category-predictive information. Compared with healthy comparison participants, both patient groups had impaired performance. Impairments in the dlPFC patients were largest during the RB task, whereas impairments in the vmPFC patients were largest during the DP task. A hierarchical model was fit to the participants’ data to assess learning deficits in the patient groups. PFC damage was correlated with a regularization term that limited updates to attention after each trial. Our results suggest that the PFC, as a whole, is important for learning to orient attention to relevant stimulus information. The dlPFC may be especially important for rule-based learning, whereas the vmPFC may be important for focusing attention on deterministic (highly diagnostic) features and ignoring less predictive features. These results support overarching functions of the dlPFC in executive functioning and the vmPFC in value-based decision-making.
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2343-23.2024
