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Abstract:
Affiliation:University of California, Berkeley Abstract: A
fundamental problem in cognitive neuroscience is understanding how
and where information about object identity and location is
integrated. The visual system makes a crude separation between the
processing of object identity and object location. However one
subjectively experiences an integrated object in a specific spatial
location. A candidate neural area for the control of object and
location integration is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).
DLPFC receives inputs from both ventral object and dorsal spatial
processing streams. Recent single unit research has reported that
DLPFC cells can represent the conjunction of object identity and
location information. We investigated the role of DLPFC in the
integration of object form, color and location information.
Prefrontal lesioned patients and age-matched controls were
presented with two of three types of information (object form,
color and location) on any given trial. Successful performance
required the integration of these two separate pieces of
information into a unified whole. In a baseline (non-integration)
condition subjects were presented with similar information, but
integration was not required. Patients made significantly more
errors and displayed slower reaction times for both integration
tasks in comparison to the non-integration condition. These data
provide evidence implicating the human dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex in the integration of object form, color and location.
Supported by: NIH Grant No: NS21135
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