“The dorsal–lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is related to the processing of information regarding the “self”, which might be the neural basis for human to exert self consciousness”, suggested the research team of Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (KIZ, CAS).

The prefrontal cortex (PFC), anterior part of the frontal lobes in primates, reaches its phylogenetic peak in primates, especially in humans, where it occupies about one third of the neocortical area. It is indispensible in information processing, particularly in working memory (WM). Although the importance of the PFC for higher-order cognitive functions is largely undisputed, many details are still unclear.

The research teams of KIZ headed by Dr. MA Yuanye and Dr. HU Xintian did a five-year research on monkeys to study the functions of PFC in the processing of spatial information. Contrary to the original thought dlPFC was responsible for all spatial information in WM, the research results showed that dlPFC is only related to the egocentric spatial information processing in WM that might be involved in self-recognition. It is therefore concluded that dlPFC is closely related to the mental representation of the self and self-recognition. The findings have been published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

The research was supported by National Science Foundation of China, 973 program, Major State Basic Research of China, Chinese-Finnish International Collaboration Project-neuro, and Program of CASC.