MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK.
School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
Brain Struct Funct. 2023 Jan;228(1):341-352. doi: 10.1007/s00429-022-02510-0. Epub 2022 Jun 7.
Decades of neuropsychological and neuroimaging evidence have implicated the lateral parietal cortex (LPC) in a myriad of cognitive domains, generating numerous influential theoretical models. However, these theories fail to explain why distinct cognitive activities appear to implicate common neural regions. Here we discuss a unifying model in which the angular gyrus forms part of a wider LPC system with a core underlying neurocomputational function; the multi-sensory buffering of spatio-temporally extended representations. We review the principles derived from computational modelling with neuroimaging task data and functional and structural connectivity measures that underpin the unified neurocomputational framework. We propose that although a variety of cognitive activities might draw on shared underlying machinery, variations in task preference across angular gyrus, and wider LPC, arise from graded changes in the underlying structural connectivity of the region to different input/output information sources. More specifically, we propose two primary axes of organisation: a dorsal-ventral axis and an anterior-posterior axis, with variations in task preference arising from underlying connectivity to different core cognitive networks (e.g. the executive, language, visual, or episodic memory networks).
几十年来，神经心理学和神经影像学的证据表明，外侧顶叶皮层（LPC）在众多认知领域中发挥作用，产生了许多有影响力的理论模型。然而，这些理论无法解释为什么不同的认知活动似乎涉及共同的神经区域。在这里，我们讨论了一个统一的模型，其中角回形成了更广泛的 LPC 系统的一部分，其核心是潜在的神经计算功能；即对时空扩展的表示进行多感觉缓冲。我们回顾了从计算模型得出的原则，并结合神经影像学任务数据和功能及结构连通性测量，为统一的神经计算框架提供了支持。我们提出，尽管各种认知活动可能依赖于共享的基础机制，但角回和更广泛的 LPC 中任务偏好的变化，源于该区域与不同输入/输出信息源的基础结构连通性的渐变。更具体地说，我们提出了两个主要的组织轴：背-腹轴和前-后轴，任务偏好的变化源于与不同核心认知网络（例如，执行、语言、视觉或情景记忆网络）的潜在连接。
