Prefrontal executive function and adaptive behavior in complex environments

Abstract

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) subserves higher cognitive abilities such as planning, reasoning and creativity. Here we review recent findings from both empirical and theoretical studies providing new insights about these cognitive abilities and their neural underpinnings in the PFC as overcoming key adaptive limitations in reinforcement learning. We outline a unified theoretical framework describing the PFC function as implementing an algorithmic solution approximating statistically optimal, but computationally intractable, adaptive processes. The resulting PFC functional architecture combines learning, planning, reasoning and creativity processes for balancing exploitation and exploration behaviors and optimizing behavioral adaptations in uncertain, variable and open-ended environments.