Title: Brain mechanisms of flexible cognitive control
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: At first glance, two great hallmarks of cognitive control appear to be in opposition. First, cognitive control must be selective: in a capacity limited system, processing of task-relevant information must be prioritised above the rest. Second, control must be flexible. After selectively attending to one piece of information in one moment, we must be able to quickly shift to a new set of information as we move through our task and mental focus changes. Building on my independent programme of research at Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia), this new CBU programme will advance the proposal that these features are two sides of the same neural coin: arising from a single neural system that drives selective, yet flexible, processing of task relevant information. Drawing on the CBU’s state-of-the art neuroimaging facilities and contributing to its key strength in methods for exploring mind and brain, we will use and further develop new analysis methods for high temporal and spatial resolution neuroimaging and brain stimulation. We will use fMRI, MEG, EEG, and combined TMS-fMRI, to study the temporal dynamics and causal interactions of information coding in and between brain networks, and seek to understand the links between neural processing and behaviour. In parallel, we will develop 3 applications: detecting lapses of attention in tasks inspired by air and rail traffic monitors, understanding the development of flexible cognition in childhood, and using neuroimaging to index latent cognitive ability in children who do not speak. We will establish key links with the programmes of Astle, Duncan, Kievit, Davis and the Centre for Attention Learning and Memory. This will bring together expertise in neuroimaging methods, attention, executive control, language, and cognitive development at the CBU. In neuroimaging, the diversity of human cognition is mirrored in the flexible response of a defined network of regions of frontoparietal cortex. Our previous work using multivariate pattern analysis has shown that, within these multiple-demand or MD regions, representational codes adjust, within single tasks, to track changes in task demands, spatial attention, and the requirement to attend to different stimulus attributes. A rapidly changing response in MD cortex could provide a moment-to-moment source of bias over processing in specialised brain regions. Understanding this process may therefore hold the key to understanding the enormous human capacity for flexible thought and behaviour. However, our knowledge is limited in three key ways. First, we lack evidence linking patterns of activation to the behaviour they are thought to support. Second, we do not yet know whether MD coding transitions fast enough to establish the brief attentional episodes proposed to support cognition. Third, we lack data about the causal contribution of activation patterns. To address these issues we need new neuroimaging methods, and accordingly our second motivation is methodological. We aim to develop methods that i) link neural information coding with behaviour, ii) examine the exchange of information between brain regions, and iii) provide a framework for testing causality. In a final strand of the programme, we aim to develop a novel application of neuroimaging to assess hidden ability in cognitive disorders where behaviour is not a good indicator of cognition.


Research activity codes: 1.4 METHODOLOGIES AND MEASUREMENTS;2.5 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES (AETIOLOGY)
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH;NEUROLOGICAL