Value judgments and self-control of action: The role of the medial frontal cortex

Humans generate actions in relation to perceived events in the environment. Events are valuated in terms of subjective (personal) relevance or meaning, i.e. “what does this mean to me?”. Similarly, making sense or gaining meaning from sensations (i.e., “perception”) from one's own body and of mental images, such as memories or intentions, involves valuation from a subjective perspective. Here, we review recent findings in neurophysiology and neuroimaging suggesting that the medial frontal cortex comprises cortical relay nodes that afford the attribution of self-relevant, immediate and intuitive (implicit) meaning. In addition, we describe recent data that suggest that the medial frontal cortex participates also in the explicit appraisal of certain stimuli, namely, emotional face expressions, occurring as early as 150 ms following the stimulus. We propose that the medial frontal cortex subserves egocentric “value” judgments (both implicit and explicit), which are critical for self-control of action.