Cognitive Control (Executive Function): Role of Prefrontal Cortex

Cognitive control is the ability to direct mental function and behavior in accord with internally represented intentions or goals. This ability is fundamental to all higher cognitive faculties, such as language, reasoning, problem solving, and social behavior. While this ability no doubt relies on interactions between many areas of the brain, neuropsychological, neurophysiological, neuroimaging, and neural network modeling studies all indicate strongly that the prefrontal cortex plays a critical role in cognitive control. This article reviews these findings briefly, and suggests that the prefrontal cortex executes control by guiding the flow of neural activity along pathways in other parts of the brain responsible for performing an intended task.