Cerebral Cortex, Vol. 11, No. 11, 1040-1046,
November 2001
© 2001 Oxford University Press
Anterior Prefrontal Cortex Mediates Rule Learning in Humans
1 Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, Institute of Neurology, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, , 2 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR and , 3 Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, Rowland Hill Street, London NW3, UK
Address correspondence to Bryan A. Strange, Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, Functional Imaging Laboratory, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK. Email: bstrange{at}fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk.
Despite a need for rule learning in everyday life, the brain regions involved in explicit rule induction remain undetermined. Here we use event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure learning-dependent neuronal responses during an explicit categor- ization task. Subjects made category decisions, with feedback, to exemplar letter strings for which the rule governing category membership was periodically changed. Bilateral fronto-polar prefrontal cortices were selectively engaged following rule change. This activation pattern declined with improving task performance reflecting rule acquisition. The vocabulary of letters comprising the exemplars was also periodically changed, independently of rule changes. This exemplar change modulated activation in left anterior hippocampus. Our finding that fronto-polar cortex mediates rule learning supports a functional contribution of this region to generic reasoning and problem-solving behaviours.
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