PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Woolgar, Alexandra
AU  - Hampshire, Adam
AU  - Thompson, Russell
AU  - Duncan, John
TI  - Adaptive Coding of Task-Relevant Information in Human Frontoparietal Cortex
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2616-11.2011
DP  - 2011 Oct 12
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience
PG  - 14592--14599
VI  - 31
IP  - 41
4099  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/41/14592.short
4100  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/41/14592.full
SO  - J. Neurosci.2011 Oct 12; 31
AB  - Frontoparietal cortex is thought to be essential for flexible behavior, but the mechanism for control remains elusive. Here, we demonstrate a potentially critical property of this cortex: its dynamic configuration for coding of task-critical information. Using multivoxel pattern analysis of human functional imaging data, we demonstrate an adaptive change in the patterns of activation coding task-relevant stimulus distinctions. When task demands made perceptual information more difficult to discriminate, frontoparietal regions showed increased coding of this information. Visual cortices showed the opposite result: a weaker representation of perceptual information in line with the physical change in the stimulus. On a longer timescale, a rebalancing of coding was also seen after practice, with a diminished representation of task rules as they became familiar. The results suggest a flexible neural system, exerting cognitive control in a wide range of tasks by adaptively representing the task features most challenging for successful goal-directed behavior.