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Focused Review ARTICLE

Mapping task switching in frontal cortex through neuropsychological group studies

Tim Shallice^1,2, Donald T. Stuss^3,4*, Terence W. Picton^3,4, Michael P. Alexander^5,6 and Susan Gillingham³

Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, SISSA, Trieste, Italy

Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College, London, UK

Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, Toronto, ON, Canada

Departments of Psychology and Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Behavioral Neurology Unit, KS 253, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA

Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

This paper considers evidence provided by large neuropsychological group studies and meta-analyses of functional imaging experiments on the location in frontal cortex of the subprocesses involved in the carrying out of task-switching paradigms. The function of the individual subprocesses is also considered in the light of analyses of the performance of normal subjects.

Keywords:

task-switching, switch-cost, anterior attentional system, frontal lobes, focal lesions, reaction time, errors, review

Citation:

Shallice T, Stuss DT, Picton TW, Alexander MP and Gillingham S (2008). Mapping task switching in frontal cortex through neuropsychological group studies. Front. Neurosci. 2,1: 79-85 doi: 10.3389/neuro.01.013.2008

Received:

23 April 2008;

Paper pending published:

16 June 2008;

Accepted:

16 June 2008;

Published online:

15 July 2008.

Edited by:

Robert T. Knight, University of California Berkeley, USA

Reviewed by:

Marcel Brass, Ghent University, Belgium
Leon Deouell, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation, Hebrew University, Israel

© 2008 Shallice, Stuss, Picton, Alexander and Gillingham. This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.

*Correspondence:

Donald T. Stuss, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, 3560 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M6A 2E1. e-mail: dstuss@rotman-baycrest.on.ca