Medial PFC Damage Abolishes the Self-reference Effect

Philippi, Carissa L.; Duff, Melissa C.; Denburg, Natalie L.; Tranel, Daniel; Rudrauf, David

doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00138

Cited by 111 publications

(119 citation statements)

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“…We would hasten to add that the structure-function mappings we report here by no means exhaust the functions of the PFC, which is known to participate in other high-level cognitive processes such as theory of mind (1) and self-referential processing (57,58). Also, it is important to acknowledge that our results are relative to the particular tasks for which data were available, and different neuropsychological measures might produce somewhat different anatomical results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Lesion mapping of cognitive control and value-based decision making in the prefrontal cortex

Gläscher

Adolphs

Damásio

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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418

269

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A considerable body of previous research on the prefrontal cortex (PFC) has helped characterize the regional specificity of various cognitive functions, such as cognitive control and decision making. Here we provide definitive findings on this topic, using a neuropsychological approach that takes advantage of a unique dataset accrued over several decades. We applied voxel-based lesionsymptom mapping in 344 individuals with focal lesions (165 involving the PFC) who had been tested on a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tasks. Two distinct functional-anatomical networks were revealed within the PFC: one associated with cognitive control (response inhibition, conflict monitoring, and switching), which included the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex and a second associated with valuebased decision-making, which included the orbitofrontal, ventromedial, and frontopolar cortex. Furthermore, cognitive control tasks shared a common performance factor related to set shifting that was linked to the rostral anterior cingulate cortex. By contrast, regions in the ventral PFC were required for decision-making. These findings provide detailed causal evidence for a remarkable functional-anatomical specificity in the human PFC.T he prefrontal cortex (PFC) is widely regarded as the pinnacle of brain evolution in humans (1). Its functional organization has long been under scientific scrutiny and has often been subsumed under the rubric "executive functions" (1, 2). Although some early theories attributed a unitary "central executive" to the PFC (3), scientific findings of the past decades have suggested that executive processes fractionate into distinct cognitive functions concerned with motivating behavior (valuation) and controlling behavior (cognitive control), which have been proposed to draw on two partially distinct PFC networks (1,(4)(5)(6). Comparative neuroanatomy suggests a functional and anatomical distinction between ventral PFC with strong connections to the limbic system and dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC) with connections to posterior cortical areas in the parietal lobe (7). Cognitive control, which is thought to draw on multiple processes, including task switching, response inhibition, error detection and response conflict, and working memory (2,4,8), has been associated with the dlPFC and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), as well as other sectors of the PFC that together may constitute a rostro-caudally organized hierarchy for behavioral control and planning (9-11). In contrast, valuation, reward learning, and decision-making functions have been mainly associated with ventral and medial sectors of the PFC (vmPFC) (10,(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18). Overall, then, the broad functions of "cognitive control" and "valuation" appear to draw on partly distinct, but interacting, networks within the PFC to generate adaptive behavior (6,19,20), although this distinction is sometimes framed between various levels of control and motivation (20) or between executive functions (monitoring and task...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Lesion mapping of cognitive control and value-based decision making in the prefrontal cortex

Gläscher

Adolphs

Damásio

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

418

269

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“…The discrepancy between retrieval performance for items that have been processed with self-reference and retrieval performance for items that have been processed with otherreference provided an estimation of the SRE, that is, memory advantage for self-related items, in each participant (cf. Philippi et al, 2012). This estimation of SRE was subsequently correlated with brain regional grey matter density and functional activity.…”

Section: A C C E P T E D Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, in order to obtain an estimation of the SRE in each participant, the difference between Self-accuracy and Other_accuracy was calculated for each participant based on the method used by Philippi et al (2012). One may reasonably consider that the higher the difference, the greater the advantage of self compared to other on memory performance.…”

Section: A C C E P T E D Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cognitive and neuroimaging evidence of impaired interaction between self and memory in Alzheimer's disease

Genon

Bahri

Collette

et al. 2014

Cortex

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In human cognition, self and memory processes strongly interact, as evidenced by the memory advantage for self-referential materials (Self Reference Effect (SRE) and Self Reference Recollection Effect (SRRE)). The current study examined this interaction at the behavioural level and its neural correlates in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Healthy older controls (HC) and AD patients performed trait-adjectives judgements either for selfrelevance or for other-relevance (encoding phase). In a first experiment, the encoding and subsequent yes-no recognition phases were administrated in an MRI scanner. Brain activation as measured by fMRI was examined during self-relevance judgements and anatomical images were used to search for correlation between the memory advantage for self-related items and grey matter density (GMD). In a second experiment, participants described the retrieval experience that had driven their recognition decisions (familiarity vs. recollective experience).The behavioural results revealed that the SRE and SRRE were impaired in AD patients compared to HC participants. Furthermore, verbal reports revealed that the retrieval of selfrelated information was preferentially associated with the retrieval of contextual details, such as source memory in the HC participants, but less so in the AD patients. Our imaging findings revealed that both groups activated the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) at encoding during self-relevance judgments. However, the variable and limited memory advantage for selfrelated information was associated with GMD in the lateral prefrontal cortex in the AD patients, a region supporting high-order processes linking self and memory. These findings suggest that even if AD patients engage MPFC during self-referential judgments, the retrieval of self-related memories is qualitatively and quantitatively impaired in relation with altered high-order processes in the lateral PFC.

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“…In support of this view, there is for example evidence that people recall more episodic details about items judged in reference to the self, suggesting that self-reference enhances the binding of different forms of information in memory (e.g., items and associated contextual details) (Conway, Dewhurst, Pearson, & Sapute, 2001). A potential role of the mPFC in this integrative process is suggested by evidence showing that the self-reference effect in memory is predicted by medial prefrontal activity in healthy individuals (Macrae, Moran, Heatherton, Banfield, & Kelley, 2004) and is 16 abolished in patients with focal brain damage to the mPFC (Philippi, Duff, Denburg, Tranel, & Rudrauf, 2012). More generally, there is substantial evidence that the mPFC is involved in relating and integrating incoming information to pre-existing knowledge structures (Brod, Werkle-Bergner, & Shing, 2013;Kroes & Fernández, 2012;Preston & Eichenbaum, 2013;van Kesteren, Ruiter, Fernández, & Henson, 2012).…”

Section: What Is the Role Of The Medial Prefrontal Cortex In Self-refmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mind-Wandering and Self-Referential Thought

D’Argembeau

2018

Oxford Handbooks Online

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When our mind wanders, we frequently experience thoughts, images, and feelings about ourselves and our life. These self-referential thoughts involve diverse contents and take various forms, but most often focus on specific future events that are closely related to our personal goals and concerns. Neuroimaging studies show that such spontaneous mentations recruit many of the same brain regions-largely corresponding to the default network-as directed self-referential thought. The medial prefrontal cortex is most consistently involved and might contribute to assign value and to integrate processed contents with autobiographical knowledge. The tendency of the wandering mind to focus on self-related information might foster our sense of personal identity and lay the foundation for long-term goal pursuit.Keywords: mind-wandering; task-unrelated thought; spontaneous thought; self; autobiographical memory; goals; future thinking; medial prefrontal cortex; default network 3 A fascinating feature of the human mind is its ability to temporarily disengage from current sensory input to mentally simulate alternatives to the here and now. During our daily activities, our minds indeed frequently drift away from the task at hand and focus on various thoughts and mental images that are only loosely (if at all) related to our immediate environment. These thoughts can be remarkably varied in their content and phenomenology, yet a bit of introspection readily indicates that many of them involve self-referential information-memories of personal experiences, anticipations of and plans about one's future, evaluations of one's personal characteristics and life situations, thoughts about one's social relationships, and so on. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the nature, neural correlates, and possible functions of such self-referential thoughts.

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Medial PFC Damage Abolishes the Self-reference Effect

Cited by 111 publications

References 26 publications

Lesion mapping of cognitive control and value-based decision making in the prefrontal cortex

Lesion mapping of cognitive control and value-based decision making in the prefrontal cortex

Cognitive and neuroimaging evidence of impaired interaction between self and memory in Alzheimer's disease

Mind-Wandering and Self-Referential Thought

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