Pre-frontal cortex facts for kids
| Brain: Prefrontal cortex | ||
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Quick facts for kids
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| Brodmann areas of lateral surface. Per BrainInfo, parts of #8, #9, #10, #11, #44, #45, #46, and #47 are all in the prefrontal region. | ||
| Latin | Cortex praefrontalis | |
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the front part of the frontal lobes of the brain. It lies in front of the motor and premotor areas.
This brain region helps plan complex cognitive behaviours, personality expression, and decision making. It helps correct social behaviour. The basic activity of this brain region is to bring together thoughts and actions to help achieve internal goals.
The most typical psychological term for functions carried out by the prefrontal cortex area is executive function. This is the ability to work out conflicting thoughts. It determines good and bad, better and best, same and different, consequences of current activities, working toward a goal, prediction of outcomes, and expectation of results. Critical is 'social control': the ability to suppress urges which, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes.
Many authors have indicated an integral link between a person's personality and the functions of the prefrontal cortex.
Images for kids
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Lebedev et al. experiment that dissociated representation of spatial attention from representation of spatial memory in prefrontal cortex
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Animation, prefrontal cortex of left cerebral hemisphere (shown in red)
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Front view
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Lateral view
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Medial perspective
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See also
In Spanish: Corteza prefrontal para niños
