Brain mechanisms of flexible cognitive control

Everything we think and do depends on our ability to pay attention, but how our brains achieve this is poorly understood. In this programme we use advanced brain imaging techniques to study the human brain in action, asking how our brains flexibly direct our neural resources to pay attention and achieve our goals.
We test the proposal that the same neural system that drives our ability to pay attention to only the most important aspects of the world, also enables us to flexibly and rapidly shift our attention moment-to-moment as we move through a task or our goals change. The importance of this system can be clearly seen when it is damaged, e.g., by stroke or tumour, often with lifelong disability and corresponding healthcare burden. We develop and use advanced analytics, multi-modal neuroimaging and brain stimulation, to ask how the important parts of the world around us are encoded in this system, and how neural activity develops and changes as it passes between brain regions.
In this way, we aim to address one of the most fundamental and enduring mysteries of cognitive neuroscience: how activity in the brain gives rise to thought and behaviour. Then, we cultivate opportunities to apply this knowledge. For example, we explore whether brain imaging can detect lapses of attention and prevent mistakes before they happen in tasks inspired by rail traffic monitoring, and use neuroimaging to study potentially hidden cognitive abilities in autistic individuals who do not speak.

We study the neural mechanisms that give rise to the extraordinary diversity and flexibility of human behaviour. There are three main strands. First, we study the neural processes enabling cognitive control to be both selective (prioritising some information above the rest) and yet also flexible (rapidly shifting to prioritise new information as tasks progress or goals change). We test the proposal that these features arise from a single neural system that drives selective, yet flexible, processing of task-relevant information. Using advanced analytical approaches on MEG, fMRI, EEG and TMS data, we study the fundamental processes of selection, representation and exchange of information within and beyond frontoparietal cortex. These are foundational features of neural processing which underpin much of higher cognition. Our second strand supports the first. Here we address a key issue in the field of neuroimaging and a grand challenge for the CBU: Bridging Brain and Mind. We seek to go beyond describing the task conditions a brain region responds to, and understand when and how the signals we measure are meaningful for cognition and behaviour. Contributing to, and drawing from, the CBU’s strength in methods for exploring mind and brain, we develop new analytical approaches to make this link. This is fundamental for improving inference from neuroimaging. Third, we cultivate opportunities for application of our work such as detecting lapses of attention in tasks inspired by rail traffic monitors, and using neuroimaging to index latent cognitive ability in children who do not speak. The programme brings together expertise in neuroimaging methods, attention, executive control, and language, to broaden the CBU’s capacity to achieve its mission of understanding cognition and the brain, and the MRC’s mission to improve human health through world-class medical research.