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The Prefrontal Cortex: Categories, Concepts, and Cognitive Control

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Memories: Molecules and Circuits

Part of the book series: Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences ((NEUROSCIENCE))

Abstract

What controls your thoughts? How do you know how to act while dining in a restaurant? This is cognitive control, the ability to organize thought and action around goals. Results from our laboratory have shown that neurons in the prefrontal cortex and related brain areas have properties commensurate with a role in “executive” brain function. Perhaps most importantly, they transmit acquired know ledge. Here, I discuss how the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia may help obtain our internal representations of rules and principles needed for goal-directed behavior, thereby providing the foundation for the complex behavior of primates, in whom the prefrontal cortex is most elaborate.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, RIKEN-MIT Neuroscience Research Center, and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue 46-6241, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Earl K. Miller

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  1. Earl K. Miller
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives CNRS UMR 5106, Université de Bordeaux 1, Avenue des Facultés, 33405, Talence, France

    Bruno Bontempi Ph.D.

  2. Departments of Neurobiology Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences Psychology and Brain Research Institute, UCLA, 695 Young Drive South Room 2357, Box 951761, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1761, USA

    Alcino J. Silva (Prof. Dr.) (Prof. Dr.)

  3. Pour la Recherche Thérapeutique, Fondation IPSEN, 24, rue Erlanger, 75781, Paris Cedex 16, France

    Yves Christen Ph.D.

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Miller, E.K. (2007). The Prefrontal Cortex: Categories, Concepts, and Cognitive Control. In: Bontempi, B., Silva, A.J., Christen, Y. (eds) Memories: Molecules and Circuits. Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-45702-2_10

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