A new study – titled “Global Connectivity of Prefrontal Cortex Predicts Cognitive Control and Intelligence” – was published just last week. In it, my co-authors and I describe our research showing that connectivity with a particular part of the prefrontal cortex can predict how intelligent someone is. We measured intelligence using “fluid intelligence” tests, which measure …
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I recently watched this talk (below) by Joaquin Fuster. His theories provide a good integration of cortical functions and distributed processing in working and long-term memory. He also has some cool videos of likely network interactions across cortex (in real time) in his talk. Here is a diagram of Dr. Fuster’s view of cortical hierarchies: …
Several months ago I posted The Will to be Free, Part I. In that post I explained that memory is the key to free will. However, this insight isn’t quite satisfactory. We need three additional things to complete the picture: the ability to choose based on predictions, internal desires, and self-awareness. (A quick disclaimer: These …
I recently published my first primary-author research study (Cole & Schneider, 2007). The study used functional MRI to discover a network of brain regions responsible for conscious will (i.e., cognitive control). It also revealed the network’s specialized parts, which each uniquely contribute to creating the emergent property of conscious will. I believe this research contributes …
Hippocampus is involved in feature binding for novel stimuli (McClelland, McNaughton, & O'Reilly – 1995, Knight – 1996, Hasselmo – 2001, Ranganath & D'Esposito – 2001) It was demonstrated by McClelland et al.that, based on its role in episodic memory encoding, hippocampus can learn fast arbitrary association. This was in contrast to neocortex, which they …
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24) Cognitive control processes are distributed within a network of distinct regions (Goldman-Rakic – 1988, Posner – 1990, Wager & Smith 2004, Cole & Schneider – 2007) Researchers investigating eye movements and attention recorded from different parts of the primate brain and found several regions showing very similar neural activity. Goldman-Rakic proposed the existence of …
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17) Reverbatory activity in lateral prefrontal cortex maintains memories and attention over short periods (Fuster – 1971, Jacobsen – 1936, Goldman-Rakic – 2000) Patient H.M., with his lack of long term memory but largely intact working (short-term) memory, illustrated a dissociation between these two forms of memory. While long-term memory seemed to rely on hippocampus …
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