The Frontal Lobes occupy approximately one-third of the human cerebral hemispheres, comprising all the tissue in front of the central sulcus. Despite all that has been learned in the past few decades, a certain sense of uniqueness is still associated with Frontal Lobe function.
In 1948, Rose and Woolsey noticed that the Frontal lobes had a region that received projections from the dorsomedial nucleus of the Thalamus. They termed this region the Pre-Frontal Cortex. The Pre-Frontal cortex underlies functions that are much less hard wired and acts predominently as an orchestrator for integrating other cortical areas and for calling up behavioral programs appropriate to the context of the perceived experience(s).
Neural cells that project to muscles are called motor neurons.
The motor units of the Frontal lobes, consist of three hierarchically organized zones. The Primary Zone is the motor strip, Brodmann's area 4, which is the final cortical motor-command area. The Secondary Zone is the premotor area, Brodmann's area 6, where motor programs are prepared for execution by the primary zone. The most important part of the motor functional unit is the Tertiary Zone, comprizing the pre-Frontal cortex: Brodmann's areas 9, 10, 45, 46, and 47. It is here that intentions are formed. The tertiary zone of the Frontal motor unit is the most highly integrated area of function: The Superstructure above all other parts of the cerebral cortex.
The Frontal lobes and pre-Frontal areas of the brain (those parts to the cerebral hemispheres which lie anterior to the motor regions), have been considered to be the locus of the Higher Intellect or Higher Consciousness of the human brain. Some specific functions of these areas are to selection or control different types of behavior, especially choices of behavioral options dealing with particular social or physical circumstances.
The pre-Frontal Cortex corresponds to ( Brodmann's areas 9, 10, 11, and 12). These composite areas are responsible for an individual's response to varying circumstances.
The pre-Frontal Cortex is not involved with intellect, but with one's emotional responsiveness; ranging anywhere from despair, dislike, anxiety, optimism, and delight all the way to ecstasy.
The pre-Frontal areas transmit signals into the Limbic Areas of the brain. 
The Frontal Lobes are responsible for the
Temporal Organization of our Behavior. By this, I am referring to those parts of the brain which are in control of our ability to perform goal-oriented tasks, such as answering the telephone.
We must have an ongoing record of what has just been done. Since it is independent of existing sensory information, it is called Temporal Memory. This is to refer to a neural record of recent events.
Systems for controlling both movement in space and object recognition project to the Frontal lobes in different locations. This suggests that there will be Temporal Memory for both spatial and object information (which also are located in differing locations in the Frontal lobes).
The Frontal lobes organize behavior with the aid of Temporal Memory (such that behavior will be under the control of Internalized Knowledge).
«Concentration»
The ability to maintain a concerted sequence of thoughts or cerebral functions, falls within the purview of the Frontal lobes. Another is its ability for elaboration on thought. That is, the capacity to increase the depth and abstractness of different thoughts.
Yet another, and perhaps equally important a function in this portion of the brain, is its capacity to cause storage of many bits of information simultaneously, and to cause recall of this information bit by bit as it is needed for subsequent thoughts.
- This is eximplified by our ablility to:
- 1) Prognosticate,
- 2) Plan for the future,
- 3) Delay acting in response to stimuli, until the best response is determined,
- 4) Consider the consequence of an act before it is performed,
- 5) Solve complex problems in math, architecture, etc.,
- 6) Correlate all of the known avenues of information to diagnose diseases, And
- 7) Control our actions in accordance with moral laws !
The contribution of the three Associational Zones (found within the Frontal, Temporal, and Parietal lobes), to the processes of memory, affect, language, spatial orientation, and movement is complementary, additive, and most probably heirarchical; as opposed to redundant. In general, sensory information is divided into its form and spatial components and is analyzed by the Parietal and Temporal lobes, respectively. Both components of form and spatial information then seem to progress to the Frontal lobes and median-Temporal regions, where they must again be re-integrated!
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