Alexander and Brown show how frontal lobe function can be explained by a hierarchical stack of a computational motif based on predictive coding.
Alexander, W. H., & Brown, J. W. (2018). Frontal cortex function as derived from hierarchical predictive coding. Scientific reports, 8(1), 3843.
Dopamine alters the neural oscillations associated with executive functions but leave sensory-related evoked potential unchanged.
Ott, T., Westendorff, S., & Nieder, A. (2018). Dopamine Receptors Influence Internally Generated Oscillations during Rule Processing in Primate Prefrontal Cortex. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, (Early Access), 1-15.
Martínez-Vázquez and Gail show different channels of influence in different frequency bands between frontal and parietal cortex.
Martínez-Vázquez, P., & Gail, A. (2018). Directed Interaction Between Monkey Premotor and Posterior Parietal Cortex During Motor-Goal Retrieval from Working Memory. Cerebral Cortex.
A new addition to the proposed circuitry for top-down control.
White, M. G., Panicker, M., Mu, C., Carter, A. M., Roberts, B. M., Dharmasri, P. A., & Mathur, B. N. (2018). Anterior Cingulate Cortex Input to the Claustrum Is Required for Top-Down Action Control. Cell reports, 22(1), 84-95.
A review by Mike Halassa and Sabine Kastner about our emerging understanding of the role of the thalamus in cognitive control.
Halassa, M. M., & Kastner, S. (2017). Thalamic functions in distributed cognitive control. Nature Neuroscience, 20(12), 1669.
The Dean of Prefrontal Cortex, Joaquin Fuster, breaks down prefrontal function along three lines: Executive attention, working memory, and decision-making.
Fuster, J. M. (2017). Prefrontal Executive Functions Predict and Preadapt. In Executive Functions in Health and Disease(pp. 3-19).
Randoph Helfrich and Robert Knight review evidence that the infrastructure of cognitive control is rhythmic. The general idea is that the prefrontal cortex controls large-scale oscillatory dynamics in the cortex and subcortex. But there is much more. Do yourself a favor: Read it.
Helfrich, R. F., & Knight, R. T. (2016). Oscillatory Dynamics of Prefrontal Cognitive Control. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Woolgar et al show preferential engagement of human frontoparietal networks with an increase in the complexity of task rules. Plus, the frontoparietal cortex adjusts representations to make rules that are more behavioral confusable easier to discriminate.
Goal-direction and top-down control
Timothy J. Buschman and Earl K. Miller
We review the neural mechanisms that support top-down control of behavior. We suggest that goal-directed behavior utilizes two systems that work in concert. A basal ganglia-centered system quickly learns simple, fixed goal-directed behaviors while a prefrontal cortex-centered system gradually learns more complex (abstract or long-term) goal-directed behaviors. Interactions between these two systems allows top-down control mechanisms to learn how to direct behavior towards a goal but also how to guide behavior when faced with a novel situation.
Ibos and Freedman show that area LIP is more than just space and spatial attention. They trained monkeys to make decisions based on conjunctions of motion and color. LIP neurons integrated color and motion when it was task-relevant.