Accordingly, recruitment of the anterior insula during high-threat conditions will detract from its ability to assist in executive functions; a concomitant impairment in performance is thus expected. Note that this argument assumes that the engagement of the anterior insula during high-threat conditions substantially intersects with cortical territories that are required for cognitive processes (see “SR” in Figure 4). Naturally,
these and other aspects Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of the dual competition framework need to be validated by experimental data. A second effect of threat is to trigger specific executive functions to handle ongoing challenges to the organism. For instance, “updating” might be needed to refresh the contents of working memory, “shifting” might be recruited to switch the current task set, and “inhibition” could be called to cancel previously planned actions. Again, this recruitment is suggested to depend, at least in part, on the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical – the former is known
to influence activity in other brain regions and to modulate cognitive, motor, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and visceral responses.117 For instance, the anterior cingulate may work in close cooperation with MAPK inhibitor lateral prefrontal cortex (see also ref 122), a region that is important for the manipulation of information, among other functions. In this manner, additional specific processing resources are coordinated in the service of threat processing Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical (Figure 5). Affective information conveyed by other brain regions, including the hypothalamus, amygdala, basal forebrain, and orbitofrontal
cortex is conveyed (possibly indirectly) to lateral prefrontal cortex and parietal sites, too, further engaging executive power n the function of handling the threat to the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical organism. In finalizing the discussion of the involvement of frontoparietal regions in interactions between emotion and executive function, note that these are some of the same regions that were implicated as having an important effect on perceptual competition (Figure 3B) highlighting the interdependence of perceptual and executive processes – in other words, the sharp distinction between bottom-up and top-down in Figure 2 is artificial. PD184352 (CI-1040) A third effect of threat on executive functions involves state changes that are implemented via ascending systems.7,123 The basal forebrain, hypothalamus, and reticular formation have the ability to influence both cortical and subcortical processing via widespread projections. In particular, the overall anatomical arrangement of the basal forebrain (here, more broadly construed) might involve multiple functional-anatomical macrosystems124,125 with wide-ranging effects on brain computations and important clinical implications.