Fractionating the Default Mode Network: Distinct Contributions of the Ventral and Dorsal Posterior Cingulate Cortex to Cognitive Control

By Robert Leech, Salwa Kamourieh, Christian F. Beckmann, David J. Sharp. Journal of Neuroscience, 2011

772 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) is a central part of the default mode network (DMN) and part of the structural core of the brain. Although the PCC often shows consistent deactivation when attention is focused on external events, anatomical studies show that the region is not homogeneous, and electrophysiological recordings in nonhuman primates suggest that it is directly involved in some forms of attention. We report a functional magnetic resonance imaging study of an attentionally demanding task (either a zero- or two-back working memory task). Standard subtraction analysis within the PCC shows a relative deactivation as task difficulty increases. In contrast, a dual-regression functional connectivity analysis reveals a clear dissociation between ventral and dorsal parts of the PCC. As task difficulty increases, the ventral PCC shows reduced integration within the DMN and less anticorrelation with the cognitive control network (CCN) activated by the task. The dorsal PCC shows an opposite pattern, with increased DMN integration and more anticorrelation. At rest, the dorsal PCC also shows functional connectivity with both the DMN and attentional networks. As expected, these results provide evidence that the PCC is involved in supporting internally directed thought, as the region is more highly integrated with the DMN at low task demands. In contrast, the task-dependent increases in connectivity between the dorsal PCC and the CCN are consistent with a role for this region in modulating the dynamic interaction between these two networks controlling the efficient allocation of attention.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/89f27004ac23607f01efd5aa801f487368bf9de5

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In Cognitive Neuroscience

Citations in the corpus

Subregions of the human superior frontal gyrus and their connections (2013, positive): “The neural substrate for the functional interaction between the two networks has been observed from functional subdivisions of the PCC and the precuneus, in which cognitive subdivisions were identified in both regions (Leech et al., 2011; Margulies et al., 2009).”
Informatic parcellation of the network involved in the computation of subjective value. (2014, background): “PCC is also a central node of the default mode network (Buckner et al., 2008), and recent work has made distinctions between ventral and dorsal PCC that may correspond to some of the aforementioned functions (Leech et al., 2011).”
The role of the posterior cingulate cortex in cognition and disease. (2014, methodology): “The structural connectivity of the PCC is closely related to its functional connectivity with other brain regions, which can be measured with functional MRI (Hagmann et al., 2008; Margulies et al., 2009; Leech et al., 2011).”
Salience network integrity predicts default mode network function after traumatic brain injury (2012, background): “We focused on the precu/PCC area because of its central role within the DMN (23, 24) and the relationship observed between its activation and fluctuations of attention (13, 21, 25).”
Contributions of episodic retrieval and mentalizing to autobiographical thought: evidence from functional neuroimaging, resting-state connectivity, and fMRI meta-analyses (2014, background): “However, recent findings that the DN is anatomically and functionally heterogeneous suggest functional specificity within the network (Andrews-Hanna et al., 2010a; Kim, 2012; Leech et al., 2011; Seghier and Price, 2012).”
Echoes of the Brain within the Posterior Cingulate Cortex (2012, background): “…demonstrated that the medial posterior parietal regions (the PCC and precuneus) are highly functionally heterogeneous in humans and nonhuman primates (Vogt et al., 2006; Margulies et al., 2009), with functionally separable dorsal and ventral subregions (Dastjerdi et al., 2011; Leech et al., 2011).”
The Default Network and Social Cognition (2015, background): “Dorsal regions of PCC have been linked to monitoring behaviorally relevant stimuli and environmental changes (Leech et al., 2011; Pearson, Heilbronner, Barack, Hayden, & Platt, 2011) that would be important for social navigation.”