1. Neuroanatomical bases of motivational and cognitive control: A focus on the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex

Understanding the neural mechanisms of control regulation requires delineating specific functional roles for individual neural structures, and consequently their functional relationships. Higher-order control over behavior has traditionally been seen as the function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Models of various aspects of control, including top-down processing, decision making, and performance monitoring focus primarily on two subdivisions of the PFC, namely the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the medial frontal cortex, particularly the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Within these frameworks, DLPFC is allocated a role in the maintenance of representations of goals and means to achieve them in order to bias processes that depend on posterior brain areas 58 , while medial frontal areas, again especially ACC, participate in performance monitoring, action evaluation and detection of events that indicate the need for behavioural adaptation and