TY - JOUR
T1 - Neural mechanisms of transient and sustained cognitive control during task switching
AU - Braver, Todd S.
AU - Reynolds, Jeremy R.
AU - Donaldson, David I.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank Ajay Satpute, Susan Bongiolatti, and Seema Sikka for assistance in subject recruitment and testing; Mark McAvoy for neuroimaging software development that made the brain-behavior analyses possible; and Deanna Barch and the rest of the Cognitive Control and Psychopathology Lab for thoughtful comments and helpful suggestions. The research was supported by a National Institutes of Health grant (R03 MH61615) and by an Office of Naval Research grant (N00014-001-0715 ) to T.S.B.
PY - 2003/8/14
Y1 - 2003/8/14
N2 - A hybrid blocked and event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study decomposed brain activity during task switching into sustained and transient components. Contrasting task-switching blocks against single-task blocks revealed sustained activation in right anterior prefrontal cortex (PFC). Contrasting task-switch trials against task-repeat and single-task trials revealed activation in left lateral PFC and left superior parietal cortex. In both sets of regions, activation dynamics were strongly modulated by trial-by-trial fluctuations in response speed. In addition, right anterior PFC activity selectively covaried with the magnitude of mixing cost (i.e., task-repeat versus single-task trial performance), and left superior parietal activity selectively covaried with the magnitude of the switching cost (i.e., task-switch versus task-repeat trial performance). These results indicate a functional double dissociation in brain regions supporting different components of cognitive control during task switching and suggest that both sustained and transient control processes mediate the behavioral performance costs of task switching.
AB - A hybrid blocked and event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study decomposed brain activity during task switching into sustained and transient components. Contrasting task-switching blocks against single-task blocks revealed sustained activation in right anterior prefrontal cortex (PFC). Contrasting task-switch trials against task-repeat and single-task trials revealed activation in left lateral PFC and left superior parietal cortex. In both sets of regions, activation dynamics were strongly modulated by trial-by-trial fluctuations in response speed. In addition, right anterior PFC activity selectively covaried with the magnitude of mixing cost (i.e., task-repeat versus single-task trial performance), and left superior parietal activity selectively covaried with the magnitude of the switching cost (i.e., task-switch versus task-repeat trial performance). These results indicate a functional double dissociation in brain regions supporting different components of cognitive control during task switching and suggest that both sustained and transient control processes mediate the behavioral performance costs of task switching.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0041519433&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/S0896-6273(03)00466-5
DO - 10.1016/S0896-6273(03)00466-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 12925284
AN - SCOPUS:0041519433
SN - 0896-6273
VL - 39
SP - 713
EP - 726
JO - Neuron
JF - Neuron
IS - 4
ER -