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  • Review Article
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Emergence of abstract rules in the primate brain

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 21, pages 595–610 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Various aspects of human cognition are shaped and enriched by abstract rules, which help to describe, link and classify discrete events and experiences into meaningful concepts. However, where and how these entities emerge in the primate brain and the neuronal mechanisms underlying them remain the subject of extensive research and debate. Evidence from imaging studies in humans and single-neuron recordings in monkeys suggests a pivotal role for the prefrontal cortex in the representation of abstract rules; however, behavioural studies in lesioned monkeys and data from neuropsychological examinations of patients with prefrontal damage indicate substantial functional dissociations and task dependency in the contribution of prefrontal cortical regions to rule-guided behaviour. This Review describes our current understanding of the dynamic emergence of abstract rules in primate cognition, and of the distributed neural network that supports abstract rule formation, maintenance, revision and task-dependent implementation.

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Fig. 1: Neuronal representation of abstract rules and multifaceted categories.
Fig. 2: Neural representations of shifts between abstract rules.
Fig. 3: Prefrontal cortical neurons represent interactions of abstract rules and executive functions.
Fig. 4: Rule-guided behaviour in primates.
Fig. 5: Abstract rules emerge from dynamic multistage processes.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank K. Tanaka (RIKEN Centre for Brain Science, Japan) for his contribution to our proposed model of the interaction between abstract rules and executive functions. The authors also thank the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Integrative Brain Function; the authors’ research work is partially funded by an ARC Discovery project grant to F.A.M. and a UK Medical Research Project grant to M.J.B.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biomedicine Discovery Institute and Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Farshad Alizadeh Mansouri

  2. Australian Research Council, Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Farshad Alizadeh Mansouri

  3. Department of Neurobiology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    David J. Freedman

  4. Grossman Institute for Neuroscience, Quantitative Biology and Human Behavior, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    David J. Freedman

  5. Department of Experimental Psychology, The University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Mark J. Buckley

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  3. Mark J. Buckley
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The authors contributed equally to all aspects of the article.

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Correspondence to Farshad Alizadeh Mansouri.

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Glossary

Exploration

The cognitive ability to consider other goals and resources, such as reward, outside the ongoing task.

Executive functions

Brain mechanisms that organize and optimize the use of cognitive resources to achieve a goal.

Exploitation

The cognitive ability to optimize gain and decrease cost while performing an ongoing task.

Selective attention

Neural mechanisms involved in focusing cognitive resources on task-relevant sensory-perceptual processes and inhibiting goal-irrelevant stimuli to facilitate achieving goals.

Extra-dimensional shift

In the context of object-discrimination tasks, individuals learn to select an object on the basis of a feature in a specific dimension that is reinforced by a reward; a shift in reinforcement to another feature in a different dimension (for example, from red colour to triangle shape) means that individuals need to shift their choice accordingly to get the reward.

Intra-dimensional shift

In the context of object-discrimination tasks, individuals learn to select an object on the basis of a feature in a specific dimension that is reinforced by a reward; a shift in reinforcement to another feature in the same dimension (for example, from red to blue colour) means that individuals need to shift their choice accordingly to get the reward.

Stimulus–reward reversal

In the context of object-discrimination tasks, the object–reward association contingency of two objects is reversed; individuals must learn to select the currently rewarded object, which was previously the unrewarded object.

Conflict resolution

Achieving goals in cognitive tasks might require resolution of a conflict (competition) between two sources of information or between two opposing responses.

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Mansouri, F.A., Freedman, D.J. & Buckley, M.J. Emergence of abstract rules in the primate brain. Nat Rev Neurosci 21, 595–610 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-020-0364-5

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