2014.10.2 Brain Areas

Prefrontal cortex (PFC) - many different parts of the prefrontal cortex are involved in social cognition. These include: 

•       Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC): mostly involved in planning, cognitive control, working memory. As such it contributes to social cognition, but does not have a specialized role

•       Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC): similar to dlPFC, although different aspects of planning and attention are involved. Also more involved in feature processing than maybe spatial aspects.

•       Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC): involved in value representation and as such in selecting context appropriate actions. 

•       Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC): representation and processing of self-referential information.

•       Posterior cingulate cortex (PCC): key area of the default mode network. pain processing, monitoring internal states.

•       Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC): error detection, rule selection, social evaluation, reward anticipation, positive self esteem

•       Superior temporal sulcus (STS): various multimodal functions, attention, tracking of 'others' actions/intention.

•       Fusiform face area (FFA): High level face processing, facial recognition.

•       Temporoparietal junction (TPJ): theory of mind, attentional switching, false belief.

•       Medial parietal cortex: part of the default mode network

•       inferior parietal: perception of emotion in facial stimuli. interpretation of sensory information, language, body image.

•       Precuneus: involved in self referential processing. episodic menory

•       retrosplenial cortex:  memory, imagining future events in the visual domain, spatial navigation.

•       Insula cortex: representation of internal state, disgust, pain, taste, ....

•       nucleus accumbens: reward processing