Skip Navigation



Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on February 27, 2008
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn010
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
18/10/2460    most recent
bhn010v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Volle, E.
Right arrow Articles by Levy, R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Volle, E.
Right arrow Articles by Levy, R.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The Functional Architecture of the Left Posterior and Lateral Prefrontal Cortex in Humans

Emmanuelle Volle1,2,3,4, Serge Kinkingnéhun1,5, Jean-Baptiste Pochon1,3, Karl Mondon1, Michel Thiebaut de Schotten1,3,4, Magali Seassau1,3,4, Hugues Duffau5,6, Yves Samson1,7, Bruno Dubois1,3,8 and Richard Levy1,3,9

1 Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, U610, 2 AP-HP, Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, Service de Neuroradiologie, Paris F-75013, France, 3 IFR70, Paris, France, 4 Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris6, Paris F-75006, France, 5 IFR49, Orsay, France, 6 AP-HP, Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, Service de Neurochirurgie, Paris F-75013, France, 7 AP-HP, Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, Urgences cérébro-vasculaires, Paris F-75013, France, 8 AP-HP, Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, Fédération de Neurologie, Paris F-75013, France, 9 AP-HP, Hôpital Saint-Antoine, Service de Neurologie, Paris F-75012, France

Address correspondence to Richard Levy, MD, PhD, Service de Neurologie, Hôpital Saint-Antoine, 184, rue du faubourg Saint-Antoine, 75571 Paris cedex 12, France. Email: richard.levy{at}psl.aphp.fr.

The anatomical and functional organization of the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) is one of the most debated issues in cognitive and integrative neurosciences. The aim of this study is to determine whether the human LPFC is organized according to the domain of information, to the level of the processing or to both of these dimensions. In order to clarify this issue, we have designed an experimental protocol that combines a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in healthy subjects (n = 12) and a voxel-by-voxel lesion mapping study in patients with focal prefrontal lesions (n = 37) compared with normal controls (n = 48). Each method used the same original cognitive paradigm ("the domain n-back tasks") that tests by a cross-dimensional method the domain of information (verbal, spatial, faces) and the level of processing (from 1- to 3-back). Converging data from the 2 methods demonstrate that the left posterior LPFC is critical for the higher levels of cognitive control and is organized into functionally different subregions (Brodman's area 9/46, 6/8/9, and 44/45). These findings argue in favor of a hybrid model of organization of the left posterior LPFC in which domain-oriented (nonspatial and spatially oriented) and cross-domain executive-dependent regions coexist, reconciling previously divergent data.

Key Words: functional imaging • human • lesion study • neuropsychology • prefrontal cortex • working memory


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
Y.-Y. Tang, Y. Ma, Y. Fan, H. Feng, J. Wang, S. Feng, Q. Lu, B. Hu, Y. Lin, J. Li, et al.
Central and autonomic nervous system interaction is altered by short-term meditation
PNAS, June 2, 2009; 106(22): 8865 - 8870.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.