Regions and Subregions of the Cingulate Cortex

Abstract The regional and subregional organization of the primate cingulate cortex is in dispute long after the seminal cytoarchitectural work of Brodmann (1909). He defined the anterior and posterior cingulate cortices and their component areas; however, no functions were known for these regions a century ago and this duality only referred to broad anatomical variations. Recent human neuroimaging studies seek to localize functional responses and refer to parts of the cingulate gyrus in terms of anterior or posterior locations and the Brodmann areas based on the co-registration of the Brodmann’s map to a single case by Talairach and Tournoux (1988). Since most neuroimaging studies do not draw conclusions about the cytoarchitectural bases of functional observations and the Brodmann duality is generally taken at face value, a confusing overlay of adjectives has evolved for different parts of the cortex. Thus, functional references to places on the cingulate gyrus do not refer to a comprehensive model with predictive power or histologically bounded areas, but provide site coordinates with general functional inferences. It is striking that no functional study has ever activated the entire anterior cingulate cortex of Brodmann to demonstrate its functional uniformity as implied by current usage of Brodmann’s hypotheses. An alternative approach to cingulate cortex is embodied in the concept of a neurobiological model that is derived from more than one disciplinary research resource, it is based on structure/function correlations and connections, and it makes predictions about the role of a region in specific aspects of information processing.