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Lateral Prefrontal Cortex (LPFC)

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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences
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Synonyms

Outermost layer at the frontal sides of the brain

Definition

The lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) is one of the outermost regions of the prefrontal cortex. The LPFC has unique structural and functional attributes that are linked to the region’s laterality (i.e., left versus right hemisphere). Moreover, the LPFC is subdivided into the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VPLC), each of which has various functions and a unique structural connectivity profile. The diverse nature of the LPFC’s functions and its structural connectivity with various other brain regions underscores the degree to which the LPFC carries higher-order processing (i.e., top-down processing).

Introduction

The LPFC is one of the most evolutionarily recent areas of the brain, and thus, it is arguably the region that differentiates primates from other species. The LPFC’s ontogeny – its developmental trajectory – recapitulates its phylogeny – its evolutionary history...

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References

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Correspondence to Mazen El-Baba .

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El-Baba, M. (2017). Lateral Prefrontal Cortex (LPFC). In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_772-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_772-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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