Frontal lobe & Temporal lobe: Functions & Syndromes

Anatomical terms for direction

• Dorsal: towards the back away from the ventral side. (The top of the brain is considered dorsal
because that is its position in 4 legged animals)
• Ventral: towards the stomach, away from the dorsal side. (Venter is the Latin word for belly. It also
shows up in the word ventriloquist)
• Anterior: towards the front end
• Posterior: towards the rear end. In humans, the ventral spinal cord is sometimes called anterior
and the dorsal part is called posterior.
• Rostral: towards the head or towards the front of the head near the nostrils
• Caudal: towards the rear away from the head
• Superior: above another part
• Inferior: below another part
• Lateral: towards the side away from the mid line
• Medial: towards the midline away from the side
• Proximal: located close to the point of origin or attachment
• Distal: located more distance from the point of origin or attachment
• Ipsilateral: on the same side of the body
• Contralateral: on the opposite side of the body
• Coronal plane (frontal plane): plane that shows brain structure as they would be seen from the
front
• Sagittal plane: a plane that shows brain structure as they would be seen from the side
• Horizontal/transverse plane: a plane that shows brain structure as they would be seen from
above

Terms referring to the parts of nervous system

• Column:a set of cells perpendicular to the surface of cortex, having similar properties
• Tract: a set of axons within the CNS known as projection, its axon extend from cell bodies in
structure A to synapses in structure B, which means the fibres project from A onto B.
• Neurons: a cluster of neuron cell bodies within CNS
• Ganglion: a cluster of neuron cell bodies usually outside the CNS or may cluster of neuron in an
invertebrate species
• Gyrus: it is the converted ridges in the brain, which is also known as raised tissue layer of the
cerebrum
• Sulcus: groove/depression in the cerebral cortex surrounding the gyrus. It generates a
distinguishing folded look on the brain. Typically, the larger sulci are referred to as fissures. The
cerebrum is segregated into right and left hemisphere by longitudinal fissure called by different
names also, such as medial longitudinal fissures, cerebral fissures and inter hemispheric fissures.
Frontal lobe

Frontal lobe comprise of all the tissues in front of the central sulcus, constituting 20% of the
neocortex. Functionally, frontal lobe can be grouped into 3 general categories- motor, per-motor and
pre-frontal.
The motor cortex is area 4. The pre-motor cortex include areas 6 and 8, which can be divided into 4
regions.

• Lateral area 6: pre-motor cortex

• Medial area 6: supplementary motor
cortex
• Area 8: frontal eye field
• Area 8A: supplementary eye field

In humans, the lateral pre-motor area develops into Broca’s area (area 44)

Pre-frontal cortex

The pre-frontal cortex can be divided into 3 regions:

• Dorso-lateral pre-frontal cortex (area 46,9)
• Inferior ventral pre-frontal cortex (area 11,12,13,14)
• Medial frontal cortex (area 25,32)

The inferior frontal cortex is referred to as the orbital frontal cortex because of its relation to the orbit
(eye socket).
The medial frontal lobe is sometimes considered part of anterior singulate region, rather than part of
the prefrontal cortex.
Many areas in the frontal lobe are multi-model cells responsive to combinations of visual auditory,
and somatic stimuli are formed in lateral premotor cortex (area 46). Cells responsive to taste and
olfaction are found in area 13. The latter cells likely produce our perception of flavour in food.

Connections of the motor & premotor areas

The motor and premotor areas are part of a functional system to control movements directly.
The motor cortex projects to the spinal motor neuron to control limb, hand, foot and digit
movements, to the appropriate cranial nerve motor neuron to control facial movements. It also
projects to other motor structure such as the basal ganglia and the red nucleus.
The premotor area can influence movement directly through cortico-spinal projections or indirectly
through projection to the motor cortex. The premotor regions also receive projections from tie
posterior parietal areas (PE &PF). Thus the pre-motor regions are connected to areas concerned with
the execution of limb movements. The frontal eye field (area 8 & 8A) receive projections from region
controlling eye movement and sent projection to these regions. Thus these regions receive usual
input from posterior parietal region (PG) & the superior colliculus. All premotor areas receive
projections from the dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex, which implies that this prefrontal area has some
role in the control of limbs and eye movements.
Connections to prefrontal areas
The prefrontal areas can be viewed as the end points of the dorsal(object recognition) and ventral
(visual streams).
• The dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex (area 9,46) receives its main input from the posterior parietal
areas and the temporal sulcus. These connections are reciprocal. The dorso lateral cortex has
extensive connections to regions which the posterior parietal cortex also projects including the
singulate cortex, basal ganglia, and superior colliculus.
• The orbital frontal cortex (area 11-14), receives its main afferent from the temporal lobe including
the auditory regions of the superior temporal gyrus and amygdala. These are connections from the
somato-sensory cortex (area 43), gustatory cortex (in the insula), and the olfactory regions of the
pyriform cortex. The orbital cortex therefore gains input from all sensory modalities. The orbital
frontal area projects subcortically to the amygdala and hypothalamus, providing a root for
influencing the autonomic system which controls changes in blood pressure, respiration and so on.
• The prefrontal region receives significant input from dopaminergic cells in the tegmentum. This
modulatory input plays an important role in regulating his prefrontal neurons react to stimuli,
including stressful stimuli, and probably plays some role in our different emotional states.

Functions of promotor cortex

Whereas motor cortex provide a mechanism for the execution for individual movements, the
premotor cortex (area 6,8) select the movements to be executed.

• The premotor regions functions primarily to choose behavior in response to external cues and the
supplementary motor region makes a greater internal contributions.
• Eye movements can be made to specific target that are visible or they can be made on the basis of
internal cues. Area 8 is specified for stimulus directed movements with hands or fingers, whereas
area 8A is responsible for internally driven movements. The supplementary motor region plays a
special role in the selection and direction of motor sequence.

Functions of prefrontal cortex

The prefrontal cortex controls cognitive processes so that appropriate movements are selected at the
correct time and place. This selection may be controlled by internalised information or external cues
or it may be in response to cortex or self-knowledge.
• Temporal memory, working memory or STM for motor and object recognition will be localised in
different places in the frontal cortex. The dorso-lateral areas are especially engaged in the selection
of behavior based on temporal memory.
• We learn the association between visual stimulus and reinforcement. The orbital cortex is central to
learning by associations.
• Behavior is context dependent. Behavior that is appropriate at one moment may not be
appropriate if there are any changes in that context. The choice of behavior in context requires
detailed sensory information which is conveyed to the inferior frontal cortex from the temporal lobe.
Context also means effective context, and this contribution comes from the amygdala. People with
orbital frontal lesions have difficulty with context especially in social situations.
• Autobiographical knowledge (self knowing) is called autoneotic awareness. Patient with orbital
frontal injury often loss self knowledge and have real difficulty in daily living.
Asymmetry of frontal lobe function

Left frontal lobe has a preferential role in language related movements including speech whereas the
Right frontal lobe plays a greater role in non-verbal movements such as facial expressions. The
asymmetry of frontal lobe function is relative rather than absolute. The results of studies of patients
with frontal lobe lesion indicates that both frontal lobes play a role in nearly all behaviors. People with
bi-frontal lesions are severely impaired in reporting the time of day and in decoding proverbs. Affects
seldom seem subsequent to unilateral frontal lesion.

Symptoms of frontal lobe lesions

Disturbances of motor function

• Fine motor movements, speed and strength.

Damage to the primary motor cortex (area 4) is typically associated with a chronic loss of the ability
to make fine, independent finger movements, presumably owing to a loss of direct corticospinal
projections onto motor neurons. In addition, there is a loss of speed and strength in both hand and
limb movements in the contralateral limbs. The loss of strength is not merely a symptom of damage
to area 4, because lesions restricted to the pre- frontal cortex also lead to reduced hand strength.

• Movement programming
Lashley presume that movement programming is a function of serially ordering complex chains of
behavior in relation to varying stimuli must somehow reside in the neocortex. Although he believed it
to be a function of the entire neocortex, it appears more likely to be a frontal-lobe function. Removal
of the supplementary motor cor- tex results in a transient disruption of nearly all voluntary
movements (including speech, if removal is on the left). Recovery is rapid, however, and the only
permanent disability appears to be in the performance of rapidly alternating movements with the
hands or fingers.
The likely reason that relatively minor symptoms result from rather large supplementary motor lesions
is that both the left and right premotor cortices participate in movement programming. Both left and
right premotor areas show an increase in blood flow during uni-manual tasks in humans; in monkeys,
cells in both the left and right premotor areas show increased activity regardless of which hand is
moving. Each supplementary motor cortex projects bilaterally to the basal ganglia as well.
Further evidence favoring a role for the frontal cortex in movement programming comes from the
results of a study in which patients with localized unilateral frontal lobectomies (most did not include
the premotor cortex) were asked to copy a series of arm or facial movements. Although the patients
showed mild impairment in copying the arm movements, it was small compared with the
performance of patients with left-parietal-lobe lesions. In contrast, patients with both left- and right-
frontal- lobe damage were dismal at copying a series of facial movements.
Analysis of the facial-movement task showed that the groups with frontal- lobe lesions made more
errors of sequence than did controls or other groups of patients. In other words, patients with frontal-
lobe lesions had difficulty ordering the various components of the sequence into a chain of
movements. They recalled components correctly but in the wrong order.
The observation that frontal injury severely disrupts copying facial but not arm movements implies
that the frontal lobe may play a special role in con- trolling the face, perhaps even including the
tongue.
• Voluntary gaze (coding responses are affected)
In a number of studies using widely different procedures, frontal- lobe lesions produced alterations in
voluntary eye gaze. For example, Hans-Leukas Teuber presented patients with a screen arrayed with
48 patterns that could be distinguished by shape or color or both. At a warning signal, a duplicate of
1 of the 48 patterns appeared in a box at the center of the array, and the subject’s task was to
identify the matching pattern by pointing to it. Patients with frontal-lobe lesions were impaired at
finding the duplicate pattern.
Alexander Luria (1973) recorded eye movements as people examined a picture of a complex scene.
The eye-movement patterns of the patients with large frontal-lobe lesions were quite different from
those of controls or those of patients with more-posterior lesions. Patients with large frontal-lobe
lesions tended to glance over the picture more or less at random, and changing the question about
the picture failed to alter the direction or pattern of their eye movements.

Loss of divergent thinking

• Behavior spontaneity
Patients with frontal-lobe lesions exhibit a loss of spontaneous speech. Various investigators have
quantified this loss by using tests such as the Thurstone Word- Fluency Test (also called the Chicago
Word-Fluency Test). Patients are asked to first write or say as many words starting with a given letter
as they can think of in 5 min and then say as many four-letter words starting with a given letter in 4
min. Patients with frontal-lobe lesions have a low word output on this test.
Although the principal locus of this defect appears to be in the left orbitofrontal region, lesions in the
right orbitofrontal region also may produce a marked reduction in verbal fluency.

• Strategy formation
Patients with frontal-lobe lesions are especially impaired at developing novel cognitive plans or
strategies for solving problems. In a study, Shallice and Burgess (1991) gave patients a task very
much like our dinner-party problem. They gave subjects a list of six errands (for example, “Buy a loaf
of brown bread”) and an instruction to be at a particular place 15 min after starting. They were also to
get answers to four questions (for instance, What is the price of a pound of tomatoes?). They were
not to enter shops except to buy something and were to complete the tasks as quickly as possible
without rushing.
The frontal-lobe patients found this simple task very difficult. They were inefficient, they broke rules
(for example, entered unnecessary shops), and two of the three patients failed at least four tasks. Yet
when quizzed, all the patients understood the task and had attempted to comply.

• Response inhibition
Patients with frontal-lobe lesions consistently perseverate on responses in a variety of test situations,
particularly those with changing demands. The best ex- ample is observed in the Wisconsin Card-
Sorting Test, a standard clinical test of frontal-lobe injury. A subject is presented with four stimulus
cards bearing designs that differ in color, form, and number of elements. The subject’s task is to sort
the cards into piles in front of one or another of the stimulus cards. The only help given the subject is
to be told whether the choice is correct or incorrect.
The test works on the following principle: the correct solution is, first, color; when the subject has
figured out this solution, without warning the correct solution then becomes form. The subject must
now inhibit classifying the cards on the basis of color and shift to form. When the subject has
succeeded at selecting by form, the correct solution again changes unexpectedly, this time to the
number of elements. It will later become color again, and so on.
Perseveration is common on any task that requires a frontal-lobe patient to shift response strategies,
thus demonstrating that the frontal lobe is necessary for behavioral flexibility. It is important to note
that on card-sorting tasks, subjects must not be given any hint that they are to expect a change in
the correct solution, because many frontal-lobe patients improve dramatically when given this
warning. The cue apparently lends them enough flexibility to solve the problem.
From the results of Milner’s (1964) work, the principal locus of this card- sorting effect appears to be
roughly around Brodmann’s area 9 in the left hemisphere dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Lesions
elsewhere in the left frontal lobe, and often in the right frontal lobe, also will produce a deficit,
although attenuated, on this task.
The Stroop Test further demonstrates loss of response inhibition subsequent to frontal-lobe damage.
Subjects are presented with a list of color names. Each name is printed in colored ink but never in the
color denoted by the word (for example, the word yellow is printed in blue, green, or red ink). The
subject’s task is to name the color each word is printed in as quickly as possible. Correct response
requires inhibiting reading the color name—difficult even for many controls. Patients with left frontal
lesions are unable to inhibit reading the words and thus are impaired in this task.

• Self regulation
Loss of autobiographic knowledge clearly makes it difficult to put ongoing life events in context and
leads to difficulties in regulating behavioral flexibility.

• Associative learning
Patients with large frontal-lobe lesions, it is often claimed, are unable to regulate their behavior in
response to external stimuli—that is, to learn from experience. Alexander Luria and Evgenia
Homskaya (1964) described patients with massive frontal-lobe tumors who could not be trained to
respond consistently with the right hand to a red light and with the left hand to a green light, even
though the patients could indicate which hand was which and could repeat the instructions.
In an extensive series of studies, Michael Petrides (1997) examined the ability of both human patients
and monkeys with frontal lesions to make arbitrary stimulus–response associations. In one study,
Petrides asked frontal-lobe patients to learn arbitrary associations between colors and hand
postures. For example, patients were presented with nine colored stimuli, and their task was to learn
which posture was associated with which colored stimulus. Damage to either the left or right
hemisphere results in poor performance on this task. The problem is in learning to select, from a set
of competing responses, the ones appropriate to the various stimuli.

Frontal lobe and attentional process

An attention deficit is a fundamental component of the frontal lobe syndrome, affected patients are
slow, spontaneous and uninterested. Anterior pre-frontal lesions, impaired attention and curiosity
resulting apathetic listlessness and restlessness. Keen observation, recognition of positive and
negative social and environment cues and the ability to adapt rapidly to new stimuli and problems all
depends on frontal attention mechanism. Loss of these function renders people ineffectual and
vulnerable on the streets of the real world. Patient with frontal lesions may fail to answer questions
because of inattention and are easily distracted by Irrelevant environmental stimuli. Divided attention
is often disrupted by frontal lesions.
Unilateral neglect of contralateral stimuli occurs after either left or right frontal lesions. This neglect
may result from anterior, posterior, medial or dorsolateral frontal cortex lesions.The strong
projections from the dorsolateral frontal cortex to the medial anterior singular and supplementary
motor areas probably account for the attention deficits following lesions in any of frontal areas.
Furthermore, interconnection between parietal area 7 and both frontal hetero-model and para-limbic
cortex suggest disruption of attentional circuit.
Frontal lobe and emotion

Emotion influences and is in turn influenced by multiple brain system ranging from brain stem to
prefrontal cortex. Among these emotion related brain system, the prefrontal cortex is generally
considered to be primarily involved in elaborating upon and regulating the more basic emotion
processes occurring in subcortical and brain stem regions. Prefrontal cortex makes a critical
contribution to the organization and flexible regulation of emotional responses and goal-directed
behavior.
The deficit in the perception of facial expression may be related to the loss of cells that code for facial
expression. Certain cells in temporal lobe are especially responsive to facial expression and a
population of cells in the orbital frontal cortex also codes for faces. Some of these face selecting
neurons are responsive to facial expressions or movement, so that patients with orbital frontal lesions
might have difficulty in understanding facial expressions.
The most obvious and striking effects of frontal lobe damage in human is a mark change in social
behaviour and personality. Frontal lobe lesions interfere with social and sexual behavior. In both
behaviour, flexible responses are required that are highly dependent on contextual cues and the
frontal lobe lesions interfere with both. Two types of personality changes has been observed:
pseudo-depression and pseudo-psychopathy. Patient classified as being pseudo depressed, exhibit
such symptoms as outward apathy and indifference, loss of initiative, reduced sexual interest, little
overt emotion, little or no verbal output. Patients classified as pseudo psychopathic exhibit immature
behavior, increased motor activity, and general lack of social graces. Orbital region of the frontal lobe
are associated with changes in personality.

Frontal lobe and memory function

Frontal lobe seems to involve informing memories that support recollection of past. Brain activity
increase most often within posterior regions of frontal cortex near the border between motor and
prefrontal cortex located does ally along inferior frontal gyrus near areas 44 and 6. And also within
more ventral prefrontal regions.
Frontal regions active during intentional memorisation are also active during behavior manipulation
that incidentally alter the effectiveness of memory encoding. For example, when subject makes
meaning based judgements about words, multiple regions within left frontal cortex are activated.
Those words are remembered even though the subjects make no explicit attempts at memorisation.
By contrast, when the subject perform a surface based task where words are judged, frontal activity
is minimal.
Left frontal lobe has been consistently associated with encoding of verbal memories. Memory
formation relies on multiple stream of information distinguished as verbal and non-verbal codes.
These codes will be processed in different hemisphere. Memorisation of unfamiliar faces and texture
patterns activate right frontal regions. Memorisation of nameable objects and items that can be
associated with both verbal and non-verbal imagery-based codes of an elicits bilateral activation of
frontal cortex.
Left frontal activity predicts which word would be remembered, whereas right frontal activity predicts
which picture scenes would be remembered. Left frontal activity is observed during memorisation of
faces under condition where long interval occur between face presentation it suggest that
experimental conditions can affect the lateralisation of regions engaged during memory formation.
Temporal Lobe
The temporal lobe comprises all the tissues that lies below the Sylvian sulcus And inferior to the
occipital lobe. Subcortical temporal lobe structure include the limbic cortex, amygdala and the
hippocampal formation. Connections to and from the temporal lobe extend throughout the brain.

Subdivisions of the temporal cortex

We can divide the temporal region on the lateral surface into those that are auditory( Brodmann's
area 41,42,22) and those that form the ventral visual stream on the lateral temporal lobe (area 20, 21,
37 and 38).
The sylvian fissure contains tissue forming the insula which includes the gustatory cortex as well as
the auditory association cortex. The superior temporal sulcus which separates the superior and
middle temporal gyrii also contains a significant amount of neocortex which can be divided into many
subregions. The cortex of the superior temporal sulcus is multimodal receiving input from auditory,
visual and somatic regions as well as from the two regions (frontal & parietal and the paralimbic
cortex).
The major temporal region (limbic cortex) include the amygdala and adjacent cortex (the
hippocampus) and surrounding cortex (suviculum, entorhinal cortex, and perirhinal cortex) and the
fusiform gyrus. The entorhinal cortex is (Brodmann’s area 28) and perirhinal cortex comprises area
number 35 and 36.

Connections of the temporal cortex

The temporal lobes are rich in internal connections. Afferent projections from the sensory systems
and efferent projections to the parietal and frontal association regions, limbic system and basal
ganglia. The neocortex of the left and right temporal lobes is connected by the corpus callosum,
whereas the medial temporal cortex and amygdala are connected by the interior commissure.
• The hierarchical sensory pathway: the hierarchical progression of connections emanates
(originates) from the primary and secondary auditory and visual areas ending in the temporal pole.
The visual projections from the ventral stream of visual processing whereas the auditory
projections from a parallel ventral stream of auditory processing.
• A dorsal auditory pathway travelling from the auditory areas to the posterior parietal cortex, this
pathway is analogous to the dorsal visual pathway and concerned with directing movement with
respect to auditory information.
• A poly-model pathway: this pathway is a series of parallel projections from the visual and auditory
association areas into the poly model regions of the superior temporal sulcus.
• The medial temporal projections: the projections form the auditory and visual association areas into
the medial temporal or limbic regions goes first to the perirhinal cortex, then to the entorhinal
cortex and finally into the hippocampal formation or the amygdala or both. The projection of
hippocampus forms the perforant pathway (disturbance of this projection results a major
dysfunction in hippocampal activity.
• Frontal lobe projection: this series of parallel projections reaches from the association areas to the
frontal lobe.

Theory of temporal lobe function

The temporal lobe does not have a unitary function. In that, it houses the primary auditory cortex, the
secondary auditory and visual cortex, the limbic cortex, the amygdala and the hippocampus. The
three basic sensory functions of temporal cortex are:
• Processing of auditory input
• Visual object recognition
• Association with LTM of sensory input

The hippocampus works in concerned with the object recognition and memory functions of the
neocortex and plays a special role in organising the memory of objects in space. The remaining
temporal lobe region, the amygdala adds effective tone to sensory input and memories.

Sensory processes

• Object recognition is the function of ventral visual pathway in the temporal lobe
The process of categorisation is included perception and memory and probably depends on the
cortex in the superior temporal sulcus. Damage to the temporal cortex leads to deficits in identifying
and categorising stimuli.
• The process of matching visual and auditory information (cross-model matching) depends on the
cortex of the superior temporal sulcus.
• LTM depends on the entire ventral visual stream as well as the paralimbic cortex of the medial
temporal region.

Effective responses

The effective responses (increase heart rate and blood pressure) is the function of amygdala.
Laboratory animals with amygdala lesions become very placid and don’t react emotionally to
threatening stimuli.

Spatial navigation

The hippocampus contains cells that code places in space together. These cells allow us to navigate
space and to remember where we are.

The superior temporal sulcus and biological motion

Our eyes, faces, mouth, hand and bodies make movements that can have social meaning. The
superior temporal sulcus analyses these types of movements. This area receives multimodal inputs
and these inputs play a role in categorising stimuli.

Asymmetry of temporal lobe function

• The temporal lobes are sensitive to epileptic form abnormalities, and surgical removal of the
abnormal temporal lobe is often of benefits in treating epilepsy.
• Damage to the left temporal lobe is associate both deficits in verbal memory, damage to the right
with defects in non verbal memory (faces). Similarly, left temporal lesions are associated with
deficits in processing speech sounds whereas right temporal lesions are associated with deficits in
processing certain aspects of music.
Right temporal lobe lesions lead to impairments in the recognition of faces and facial expressions.

Production of speech

The temporal lobe aids in the production of speech. Dysfunction in this brain area can lead to
difficulties in speaking.
The auditory cortex on the temporal lobe is key for hearing and understanding speech.
Vernicke’s area is involves in comprehension and understanding of written language.
Symptoms of temporal lobe lesions

• Damage to the primary visual or somatic cortex leads to a loss of conscious concussion. By lateral
damage to the auditory cortex will produce cortical deafness (absence of neural activity in the
auditory region).
• Verbal hallucination activates the primary auditory cortex, Broca’s area and the speech zone in the
posterior temporal cortex in the left hemisphere. In addition, there was some activation of the
limbic area.
• Vernicke’s region produce aphasia which is associated with disturbed recognition of words and the
extreme form being word deafness and inability to recognise words as such, despite intact hearing
of pure tones.
• The primary auditory cortex of the right temporal lobe appears to make periodicity pitch
discrimination. Other aspects of music are processed in right temporal lobe. Impairment in right
temporal lobe produces perception of timber.
• Patient with right temporal lobe damage are impaired at the recognition and recall of faces or
photographs of faces. Patients also fail to perceive the significance of visual signal (biological
motion)

Summary of major symptoms of temporal lobe damage

Lesion site:

Area no:41,42,22: Disturbance of auditory sensation

Area TE, superior temporal sulcus: disturbance of selection of visual and auditory input
Area TE, superior temporal sulcus & amygdala: disorders of visual perception
Area no 41,42,22: disturbance of auditory perception
Superior temporal gyrus: disorder of music perception
Area TE + superior temporal sulcus: impaired organisation and categorisation of material

Parietal Lobe

The parietal lobe is the region of cerebral cortex between the frontal and occipital lobes underlying
the parietal lobe at the roof of the skull. This area is roughly demarcated anteriorly by the central
fissure, centrally by the sylvian fissure, dorsally by singulate gyrus, and posteriorly by parieto-
occipital sulcus. The principal region of the parietal lobe include the post central gyrus (area no 1,2,3),
the superior parietal lobule (area no. 5 and 7), the parietal operculum (area no.43) the supra marginal
gyrus (area no.40) and angular gyrus (area no.39).
Together the supra marginal gyrus and angular gyrus are often referred to as the inferior parietal lobe.
The parietal lobe can be divided into two functional zones- an anterior zone including area no. 1,2,3
and 43; a posterior zone which include area no. 5,7,40 and 39. The anterior zone is the
somatosensory cortex, the posterior zone is referred to as posterior parietal cortex. Brodmann did
not identify area no. 39 and 40 in monkeys.

Connections of the parietal cortex

There are projections from the primary somatosensory cortex to area PE which has a tactile
recognition function, as well as to motor area including the primary motor cortex (area 4) and the
supplementary motor and premotor regions. The motor connections must be important for providing
sensory information about limb position in the control of movement.
More than hundred inputs and outputs of area 5,7 in the monkeys have been described.
PF Ph
Connections with the parietal lobe:

• Area PE (Brodmann’s area 5) is basically a somatosensory area receiving most of its connections
from the primary somatosensory cortex (area 1,2,3). Its cortical outputs are to the primary motor
cortex (area no.4) and to the supplementary motor and premotor (area 6,8), as well as to PF. Area
PE therefore plays a role in guiding movements about movements providing information about limb
position.
• Area PF (area 7b), has a heavy somatosensory input from the primary cortex (area 1,2, 3) through
area PE. It also receive inputs from the motor and premotor cortex and a small visual input through
area PG. Its efferent connections are similar to those of area PE , and these connections
presumably provide some elaboration of similar information for the motor system.
• Area PG (area 7b, and visual area) receive more complex connections including visual,
proprioceptive, somesthetic, auditory, vestibular, occulomotor, and singulate. This region was
described as parieto-temporo-occipital crossroads, which is afferent for the connectivity. Area PG
is assumed to have a role in controlling spatially guided behavior with respect to visual and tactile
information.
• There is a close relation between the posterior parietal connections and the prefrontal cortex (area
46). There are connections between the posterior parietal cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal
region. Additionally, both the prefrontal and the posterior parietal regions project to the same areas
of the paralimbic cortex and the temporal cortex as well as to the hippocampus and various
subcortical regions. These connections emphasise a close functional relation between the
prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex, which plays an important role in the control of spatially guided
behavior.