[Topographical origins of the term «prefrontal»]

Today, there is a broad consensus on the boundaries of what we call the prefrontal cortex, but this has not always been the case. The purpose of this historical review is to examine in greater depth the topographical origins of the term «prefrontal» and analyse its conceptual evolution.

The article is structured according to the main criteria that have been proposed successively over time in order to define the limits of the prefrontal cortex, namely, morphological, cytoarchitectural and hodological. During the second half of the 19th century, the criteria were essentially of a morphological nature. David Ferrier popularised the term «prefrontal» in this period. In the early years of the 20th century, criteria based on the architectural organisation of the cerebral cortex (or cytoarchitecture) predominated, and their main representative was Korbinian Brodmann. At the end of the 1940s, Jerzy E. Rose and Clinton N. Woolsey considered that the study of brain connections (hodology) was the way to define the boundaries of the prefrontal cortex and proposed that this frontal region was the main area of projection of the dorsomedial nucleus of the thalamus.

Historically, the limits of the so-called «prefrontal» region of the brain has been blurred and changing, as a result of the different criteria used at different times.