The Anatomical Segregation of the Frontal Cortex: What Does it Mean for Function?

Abstract

The frontal cortex consists of numerous areas, each with a special architecture (cyto-, myelo-, receptorarchitecture, etc.), connectivity and function. Quantitative tools of the analysis may assist in defining these cortical areas, and their position in a hierarchy of cortical regions and subregions. They enable a reliable definition of areal borders, and the consideration of intersubject variability. In our particular case, fMRI studies investigating certain aspects of cognitive control indicated to a rather circumscribed area in the posterior frontolateral cortex — the so-called IFJ area — which seems to correspond anatomically to a previously uncharted cortical area dorsally to area 44 as detected in histological sections of post mortem brains.