ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a model of frontal lobe organization based on the idea that the symptoms of a frontal lobe lesion can be understood as disruptions in the microgenetic unfolding of an action. According to the microgenetic account, every behavior or mental state has a submerged infrastructure distributed over evolutionary planes in the forebrain. The microgenesis of action proceeds in a parallel manner and fractionates movement into discrete elements. In the microgenesis of a perception a neural configuration unfolds so as to represent an object in a progressively more articulated and externalized form. A consideration of the problem of awareness for an action begins with the recognition that the action microgeny does not contribute a content directly to awareness. A consideration of the variety of motor and speech disorders occurring with frontal lesions obligates an interpretation of volitional action as a series of states unfolding in a direction toward motor cortex, not away from it.
