Abstract
Our lab has previously identified four bilateral sensory-biased regions of human lateral frontal cortex (LFC; Michalka 2015; Noyce 2017). Two visual-biased regions in superior and inferior precentral sulcus are interleaved with two auditory-biased regions. fMRI resting-state functional connectivity between posterior sensory cortex and LFC suggested additional sensory-biased regions extending rostrally along the inferior frontal sulcus and frontal operculum (Tobyne 2017). We collected fMRI while subjects (n=15) performed visual and auditory 2-back working memory (stimuli were face photographs and animal vocalizations, respectively). Directly contrasting visual 2-back with auditory 2-back revealed additional bilateral visual- and auditory-biased structures in the middle inferior frontal sulcus and the frontal operculum, respectively, yielding a total of three visual-biased and three auditory-biased regions within human LFC. We previously demonstrated (Noyce 2017) that visual-biased LFC regions participate significantly in auditory working memory, but not vice versa. Here, we extend that analysis of multiple-demand behavior these newly identified regions. We will also examine resting-state functional connectivity among sensory-biased LFC regions, modality-general LFC regions, and posterior sensory cortex. Our results suggest that preferences for one sensory modality may be an effective approach for parcellating large portions of human LFC.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2018