Jul 23 2019
Published by
NYU Shanghai
A team of researchers has recently pinpointed superior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as a critical brain region for evaluating memory accuracy in the primate brain. This discovery adds causal neural evidence to the body of behavioral literature on how primates can reflect upon their own cognition like humans. The study was published in a recent issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
“We discovered that macaque monkeys' capability of introspection of its own memory success is dependent on intact superior dorsolateral prefrontal cortices but not the confidence-coding orbitofrontal cortices, and this confirmed regional specificity within the prefrontal cortex for distinct elements of metacognition”, said Sze Chai Kwok, Associate Professor at East China Normal University and a member of the NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, who is also the corresponding author of the research.
The paper’s other authors also include Mark Buckley, who is a Professor of Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford.
Publication Reference:
Kwok SC, Cai Y, Buckley MJ. Mnemonic introspection in macaques is dependent on superior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex but not orbitofrontal cortex. The Journal of Neuroscience. doi: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0330-19.2019