Functional cerebral asymmetry analyses reveal how the control system implements its flexibility

The control system in human brain generally exerts the goal-directed regulation on a variety of mental processes. To deal with different control demands, these brain areas of the control system, especially the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), may be flexibly recruited across different tasks. However, few studies have investigated how the flexibility of the control system is realized during cognitive control. Present study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the brain responses during two domain distinct conflict tasks (verbal color-word Stroop and visuospatial arrow flanker). The voxel-wise asymmetries in both functional activity and psychophysiological interaction (PPI) between these two tasks were compared. The results showed that the brain areas of control system were consistently activated in these two tasks. When considering functional cerebral asymmetries, the left DLPFC was dominantly activated during the Stroop task, while more symmetric DLPFC activation was found during the flanker task. The left DLPFC rather than the right DLPFC showed greater positive interaction with the visual areas V1 and V2 during the Stroop interference, but interactions of both the left and right DLPFC with the right visual area V5/MT were positively enhanced during the flanker interference. These results suggest that the flexible cognitive control is achieved by the control system's task-specific activity and its top-down interaction with domain-specific brain areas, in implementing flexible representation and modulation of control demands.