Tobyne Sean M, Brissenden James A, Noyce Abigail L, Somers David C
Graduate Program for Neuroscience, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215.
Department of Psychological and Brain Science, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215.
bioRxiv. 2025 Jun 21:2025.06.21.660846. doi: 10.1101/2025.06.21.660846.
Selectivity for sensory modality characterizes distinct subregions of the human brain, well beyond the primary sensory cortices. We previously identified frontal and posterior cortical regions that are preferentially recruited for visual vs. auditory attention and working memory (WM). Here, we extend our approach to include tactile cognition and to characterize cortical regions recruited by WM in each of three sensory modalities. The joint organization of visual-selective, auditory-selective, tactile-selective, and supramodal WM recruitment within individual subjects has not been fully investigated previously. Male and female human subjects participated in a blocked fMRI task requiring them to perform back WM judgements in auditory, visual, or tactile (haptic) modalities. We confirmed our prior reports of multiple visual-biased and auditory-biased frontal lobe regions. We also observed several bilateral tactile-selective regions abutting previously described visual- and auditory-selective regions, including dorsal and ventral precentral sulcus, the postcentral sulcus, and the anterior intraparietal sulcus. Several cortical regions were recruited by WM in all three sensory modalities in individual subjects, including precentral sulcus, inferior frontal sulcus, intraparietal sulcus, anterior insula and pre-supplementary motor area. Supramodal regions exhibited substantial overlap with visual-biased regions in frontal and parietal cortex and comparatively little overlap with tactile- or auditory-biased regions. Lastly, resting-state analyses revealed that auditory-, visual- and tactile-selective WM regions segregate into modality-specific networks that span frontal and posterior cortex. Together, these results shed light on the functional organization of sensory-selective and supramodal regions supporting higher-order cognition.
对感觉模态的选择性是人类大脑不同子区域的特征，这一现象远远超出了初级感觉皮层的范围。我们之前已经确定了额叶和后皮质区域，这些区域在视觉与听觉注意力及工作记忆（WM）过程中被优先激活。在此，我们扩展了研究方法，将触觉认知纳入其中，并对三种感觉模态中每种模态下由工作记忆激活的皮质区域进行特征描述。此前尚未对个体受试者内视觉选择性、听觉选择性、触觉选择性和超模态工作记忆激活的联合组织进行充分研究。男性和女性人类受试者参与了一项组块式功能磁共振成像任务，要求他们在听觉、视觉或触觉（触觉）模态下进行工作记忆判断。我们证实了之前关于多个视觉偏向和听觉偏向额叶区域的报道。我们还观察到几个双侧触觉选择性区域，它们毗邻先前描述的视觉和听觉选择性区域，包括中央前沟背侧和腹侧、中央后沟以及顶内沟前部。在个体受试者的所有三种感觉模态中，工作记忆均激活了几个皮质区域，包括中央前沟、额下回、顶内沟、前岛叶和前辅助运动区。超模态区域在额叶和顶叶皮质中与视觉偏向区域有大量重叠，而与触觉或听觉偏向区域的重叠相对较少。最后，静息态分析表明，听觉、视觉和触觉选择性工作记忆区域分离为跨越额叶和后皮质的模态特异性网络。这些结果共同揭示了支持高阶认知的感觉选择性和超模态区域的功能组织。
