Collaborative roles of Temporoparietal Junction and Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Different Types of Behavioural Flexibility

Behavioural flexibility is essential for everyday life. This involves shifting attention between different perspectives. Previous studies suggest that flexibility is mainly subserved by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, although rarely emphasized, the temporoparietal junction (TPJ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2017-07, Vol.7 (1), p.6415-8, Article 6415
Main Authors: Tei, Shisei, Fujino, Junya, Kawada, Ryosaku, Jankowski, Kathryn F., Kauppi, Jukka-Pekka, van den Bos, Wouter, Abe, Nobuhito, Sugihara, Genichi, Miyata, Jun, Murai, Toshiya, Takahashi, Hidehiko
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
59/36
59/57
631/378/2649/1409
631/378/3919
Collaboration
Flexibility
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Prefrontal cortex
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Visual task performance
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Summary:Behavioural flexibility is essential for everyday life. This involves shifting attention between different perspectives. Previous studies suggest that flexibility is mainly subserved by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, although rarely emphasized, the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is frequently recruited during flexible behaviour. A crucial question is whether TPJ plays a role in different types of flexibility, compared to its limited role in perceptual flexibility. We hypothesized that TPJ activity during diverse flexibility tasks plays a common role in stimulus-driven attention-shifting, thereby contributing to different types of flexibility, and thus the collaboration between DLPFC and TPJ might serve as a more appropriate mechanism than DLPFC alone. We used fMRI to measure DLPFC/TPJ activity recruited during moral flexibility, and examined its effect on other domains of flexibility (economic/perceptual). Here, we show the additional, yet crucial role of TPJ: a combined DLPFC/TPJ activity predicted flexibility, regardless of domain. Different types of flexibility might rely on more basic attention-shifting, which highlights the behavioural significance of alternatives.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-06662-6