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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on July 6, 2004
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhh111
© 2004 by Oxford University Press
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Article

The Prefrontal Cortex shows Context-specific Changes in Effective Connectivity to Motor or Visual Cortex during the Selection of Action or Colour

James B. Rowe 1*, Klaas E. Stephan 2, Karl Friston 3, Richard S.J. Frackowiak 4, Richard E. Passingham 5

1 Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, London WC1N 3BG, UK; Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, 2650 Hvidovre, Denmark
2 Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, London WC1N 3BG, UK; Department of Psychology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle NE1 7RU, UK
3 Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, London WC1N 3BG, UK
4 Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, London WC1N 3BG, UK; Neuroimaging Laboratory, Fondazione Santa Lucia, 00179 Rome, Italy
5 Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, London WC1N 3BG, UK; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: j.rowe{at}fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk.


  Abstract

The role of the prefrontal cortex remains controversial. Neuroimaging studies support modality-specific and process-specific functions related to working memory and attention. Its role may also be defined by changes in its influence over other brain regions including sensory and motor cortex. We used functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) to study the free selection of actions and colours. Control conditions used externally specified actions and colours. The prefrontal cortex was activated during free selection, regardless of modality, in contrast to modality-specific activations outside prefrontal cortex. Structural equation modelling (SEM) of fMRI data was used to test the hypothesis that although the same regions of prefrontal cortex may be active in tasks within different domains, there is task-dependent effective connectivity between prefrontal cortex and non-prefrontal cortex. The SEM included high-order interactions between modality, selection and regional activity. There was greater coupling between prefrontal cortex and motor cortex during free selection and action tasks, and between prefrontal cortex and visual cortex during free selection of colours. The results suggest that the functions of the prefrontal cortex may be defined not only by selection-specific rather than modality-specific processes, but also by changing patterns of effective connectivity from prefrontal cortex to motor and sensory cortices.

Keywords: attention; effective connectivity; fMRI; functional connectivity; prefrontal cortex; selection of action; structural equation modelling.
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