The Prefrontal Cortex

The part of the brain that is considered particularly human

The frontal cortex gets a lot of press being known as the executive centre and though it is a large and complex area, I believe a short review is necessary to clarify what it does do.

The frontal or prefrontal cortex gets a lot of publicity, and quite rightly so. It is considered our “executive centre”, the part of the brain that does all that high-level stuff that makes us very human. It is also the part of the brain that is vastly different to chimpanzees and one that we can see has developed over the human lineage.

I have already reviewed certain parts that are, or can be considered, a part of the prefrontal cortex in previous posts, namely the orbitofrontal cortex, and also the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), but also in my review of the social brain. But this issue I would like to take a step back and give you a brief overview of the prefrontal which will enable us to look at different regions in more detail in the future.

When we talk of the prefrontal we are, obviously, talking about the frontal lobe of the brain. However, this can be defined in different ways: