Karl H. Pribram

Neuropsychology Laboratories, Stanford University and Center for Brain
Research and Informational Sciences, Radford University

When I began research on the functions of the anterior frontal cortex I found
that neurobehavioral considerations related this part of the brain to the functions
of the limbic part of the forebrain, not to the motor functions of the precentral
cortex. The peri-Rolandic cortex, on the basis of neurobehavioral analysis,
belonged with the remainder of the cerebral convexity. Thus a major distinction
was made between the functions in behavior of the frontolimbic formations and
those of the posterior cerebral convexity (see reviews by Pribram 1954, 1958a,
1958b, and the initial part of this chapter).

Alexandr Romanovich Luria conceived of the anterior frontal cortex in a
different fashion. He emphasized the proximity of the anterior frontal cortex to
those parts of the cortex which were electrically excitable in terms of motor
functions (including those my colleagues Kaada, Epstein, and I had discovered
in 1949 on the medial and basal surfaces of the hemisphere). This proximity to
motor systems continued to be of considerable concern to me as well, but only
recently have I hit upon an idea around which this concern can be precisely
formulated.

It is this formulation which forms the core of this chapter dedicated to the
memory of Luria.

The idea is simple. There is an important attribute by which the systems of
the central part of the cerebral mantle differ from others: the peri-Rolandic
systems are the only forebrain systems by which the organism can manipulate his
or her environment. The systems of the posterior cerebral convexity primarily
process sensory input in terms of "local sign", i.l. "epicritic" spatiotemporal
perceptual organization for which there is no direct expression. The systems of

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