Brown University researchers have found neural mechanisms that underlie our remarkable ability to discover abstract cognitive relationships when dealing with new problems.

In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, they found that the frontal cortex of the brain appears to be organized in a front to back hierarchy: more anterior regions support rule learning at higher levels of abstraction, and when humans confront new rule learning problems, this division of labor supports the search for relationships between context and action at multiple levels of abstraction simultaneously.

Also see: Neuron – Frontal Cortex and the Discovery of Abstract Action Rules