Contemporary Problems PSY720
MODULE TWO
Performance monitoring, self-regulation, and the Anterior Cingulate Cortex
OR
Oops... I did it again
Instructor: Judith M Shedden (shedden at mcmaster dot ca OR judith.shedden at gmail dot com)
The Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC): Performance, error monitoring, self-regulation -- and how do you feel about it? The ACC has been called an amplifer and filter to integrate emotional and cognitive processing. It is a lovely bit of cortex that wraps around the corpus callosum and connects with many different brain areas involved with emotion, cognition, sensory, and motor responses. The ACC has been thought to be phylogenetically ancient, yet contains spindle-shaped neurons (unique to humans, great apes, elephants, and whales) that project diversely throughout the brain. These spindle neurons may be relatively recent developments from an evolutionary perspective. ACC is involved in diverse functions related to executive control, recognition of errors, emotional response, and motivational influences. When it is needed, control is engaged, modulated, optomized, and finally withdrawn. It is a challenge to understand how the cognitive system is so good at reconfiguring control to deal with changing tasks and demands while at the same time recognizing that the ACC (and associated circuitry) is not an all knowing