Routine action sequences can share a great deal of similarity in terms of their stimulus response mappings. As a consequence, their correct execution relies crucially on the ability to preserve contextual and temporal information. However, there are few empirical studies on the neural mechanism and the brain areas maintaining such information. To address this gap in the literature, we recently recorded the blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) response in a newly developed coffee–tea making task. The task involves the execution of four action sequences that each comprise six consecutive decision states, which allows for examining the maintenance of contextual and temporal information. Here, we report a reanalysis of this dataset using a data-driven approach, namely multivariate pattern analysis, that examines context-dependent neural activity across several predefined regions of interest. Results highlight involvement of the inferior-temporal gyrus and lateral prefrontal cortex in maintaining temporal and contextual information for the execution of hierarchically organized action sequences. Furthermore, temporal information seems to be more strongly encoded in areas over the left hemisphere.

中文翻译：

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动作序列执行期间任务上下文和时间顺序的神经表示

常规动作序列在它们的刺激响应映射方面可以共享大量相似性。因此，它们的正确执行关键依赖于保存上下文和时间信息的能力。然而，关于神经机制和维持这些信息的大脑区域的实证研究很少。为了解决文献中的这一空白，我们最近在一项新开发的咖啡-茶制作任务中记录了血氧水平依赖性 (BOLD) 反应。该任务涉及执行四个动作序列，每个动作序列都包含六个连续的决策状态，这允许检查上下文和时间信息的维护。在这里，我们使用数据驱动的方法报告了对该数据集的重新分析，即多元模式分析，它检查了几个预定义的感兴趣区域的上下文相关的神经活动。结果强调了颞下回和外侧前额叶皮层参与维护时间和上下文信息以执行分层组织的动作序列。此外，时间信息似乎在左半球上方的区域中被更强烈地编码。