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When the going gets tough, the cingulate gets going

Despite extensive study, the exact role of human anterior cingulate cortex in forming behavioral strategies is still controversial. In this issue, Williams and colleagues describe a rare opportunity to test a hypothesis about the function of this brain area in humans, by not only recording from single neurons, but also monitoring behavior immediately after surgical ablation of the area.

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Figure 1: Experimental setup of Williams et al.

Ann Thompson

Figure 2: Example trial sequence.

Ann Thompson

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Gehring, W., Taylor, S. When the going gets tough, the cingulate gets going. Nat Neurosci 7, 1285–1287 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1204-1285

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