Contribution of frontal cortex to the spatial representation of number

被引:46
作者
Rusconi, Elena [1 ,2 ]
Bueti, Domenica [1 ]
Walsh, Vincent [1 ]
Butterworth, Brian [1 ]
机构
[1] UCL, Inst Cognit Neurosci, London WC1N 3AR, England
[2] Univ Trent, CIMeC, Labs Funct Neuroimaging, Mattarello, Italy
基金
英国惠康基金;
关键词
Space; Number; SNARC; Frontal cortex; TMS; TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION; MENTAL NUMBER; PARIETAL CORTEX; MOTOR THRESHOLD; EYE-FIELD; WORKING-MEMORY; BRAIN-DAMAGE; NEURAL BASIS; ATTENTION; NEGLECT;
D O I
10.1016/j.cortex.2009.08.005
中图分类号
B84 [心理学]; C [社会科学总论]; Q98 [人类学];
学科分类号
03 ; 0303 ; 030303 ; 04 ; 0402 ;
摘要
Neuropsychological and neurophysiological studies have suggested that prefrontal cortex may be involved in non-verbal number processing, when relevant for current behavioural goals. More precisely, it has been suggested that an intact right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) in humans may be necessary to the use of a spatial representation of numbers, also known as mental number line. In a popular model of spatial functions (e.g., Corbetta et al., 2008), rIFG is part of a right-lateralised ventral fronto-parietal network that conveys signals to a dorsal network supporting attentional orienting in contralateral space. Within the dorsal network, the frontal eye fields (FEF) are known to contribute to visual scene analysis and visual conjunction search tasks when eye movement commands are not required. In the present study, we hypothesised they might also be involved in exploring a conceptual space, such as the mental number line. We examined the proposed functions of the human rIFG and right Frontal Eye Field (rFEF) by interfering with their normal functioning with repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) while participants performed numerical tasks. The results suggest that, when number magnitude is relevant to the task, rIFG supports orienting to the entire mental number line while rFEF are crucial for contralateral orienting (that is towards small numbers). (C) 2009 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.
引用
收藏
页码:2 / 13
页数:12
相关论文
共 75 条
[1]   PERCEPTION OF NUMERICAL INVARIANCE IN NEONATES [J].
ANTELL, SE ;
KEATING, DP .
CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1983, 54 (03) :695-701
[2]   Stimulus-response compatibility in representational space [J].
Bächtold, D ;
Baumüller, M ;
Brugger, P .
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA, 1998, 36 (08) :731-735
[3]   Encoding strategies dissociate prefrontal activity from working memory demand [J].
Bor, D ;
Duncan, J ;
Wiseman, RJ ;
Owen, AM .
NEURON, 2003, 37 (02) :361-367
[4]  
Butterworth B., 1999, MATH BRAIN
[5]   Discrete and analogue quantity processing in the parietal lobe: A functional MRI study [J].
Castelli, F ;
Glaser, DE ;
Butterworth, B .
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 2006, 103 (12) :4693-4698
[6]   Dissociable mechanisms of cognitive control in prefrontal and premotor cortex [J].
Chambers, Christopher D. ;
Bellgrove, Mark A. ;
Gould, Ian C. ;
English, Therese ;
Garavan, Hugh ;
McNaught, Elizabeth ;
Kamke, Marc ;
Mattingley, Jason B. .
JOURNAL OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGY, 2007, 98 (06) :3638-3647
[7]   Space and attention in parietal cortex [J].
Colby, CL ;
Goldberg, ME .
ANNUAL REVIEW OF NEUROSCIENCE, 1999, 22 :319-349
[8]   A common network of functional areas for attention and eye movements [J].
Corbetta, M ;
Akbudak, E ;
Conturo, TE ;
Snyder, AZ ;
Ollinger, JM ;
Drury, HA ;
Linenweber, MR ;
Petersen, SE ;
Raichle, ME ;
Van Essen, DC ;
Shulman, GL .
NEURON, 1998, 21 (04) :761-773
[9]   Neural basis and recovery of spatial attention deficits in spatial neglect [J].
Corbetta, M ;
Kincade, MJ ;
Lewis, C ;
Snyder, AZ ;
Sapir, A .
NATURE NEUROSCIENCE, 2005, 8 (11) :1603-1610
[10]   Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain [J].
Corbetta, M ;
Shulman, GL .
NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE, 2002, 3 (03) :201-215