Neural representation of current and intended task sets during sequential judgements on human faces

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Neuroimaging

Background:

• Managing multiple tasks requires holding information for both current and future actions.
• Previous research isolated neural representations of current or intended tasks, but not both simultaneously.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the neural representation of both current and intended task sets within a single experimental framework.
• To identify brain regions involved in maintaining task-relevant information for immediate and future use.

Main Methods:

• Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study.
• Sequential classification tasks using human faces.
• Multivariate decoding analyses to identify neural representations.

Main Results:

• Current task sets were decoded from the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and fusiform gyrus (FG).
• Intended task sets were decoded from the lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC).
• A ventromedial region in the PFC/OFC showed information for both current and delayed tasks, but without cross-classification.

Conclusions:

• Delineates distinct and overlapping neural representations for current and intended task sets.
• Highlights the crucial role of ventromedial PFC/OFC in maintaining task-relevant information across time.