title: Cytoarchitecture, probability maps and functions of the human frontal pole.
abstract: The frontal pole has more expanded than any other part in the human brain as compared to our ancestors. It plays an important role for specifically human behavior and cognitive abilities, e.g. action selection (Kovach et al., 2012). Evidence about divergent functions of its medial and lateral part has been provided, both in the healthy brain and in psychiatric disorders. The anatomical correlates of such functional segregation, however, are still unknown due to a lack of stereotaxic, microstructural maps obtained in a representative sample of brains. Here we show that the human frontopolar cortex consists of two cytoarchitectonically and functionally distinct areas: lateral frontopolar area 1 (Fp1) and medial frontopolar area 2 (Fp2). Based on observer-independent mapping in serial, cell-body stained sections of 10 brains, three-dimensional, probabilistic maps of areas Fp1 and Fp2 were created. They show, for each position of the reference space, the probability with which each area was found in a particular voxel. Applying these maps as seed regions for a meta-analysis revealed that Fp1 and Fp2 differentially contribute to functional networks: Fp1 was involved in cognition, working memory and perception, whereas Fp2 was part of brain networks underlying affective processing and social cognition. The present study thus disclosed cortical correlates of a functional segregation of the human frontopolar cortex. The probabilistic maps provide a sound anatomical basis for interpreting neuroimaging data in the living human brain, and open new perspectives for analyzing structure-function relationships in the prefrontal cortex. The new data will also serve as a starting point for further comparative studies between human and non-human primate brains. This allows finding similarities and differences in the organizational principles of the frontal lobe during evolution as neurobiological basis for our behavior and cognitive abilities.
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), 52425 Jülich, Germany. Electronic address: s.bludau@fz-juelich.de.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bludau
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), 52425 Jülich, Germany; Institute for Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, 40001 Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: S B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Eickhoff
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), 52425 Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mohlberg
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), 52425 Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Caspers
authors.affiliation: Research Imaging Institute, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX, USA; Department of Radiology, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX, USA; Department of Physics, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA.
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Laird
authors.affiliation: Research Imaging Institute, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX, USA; Department of Radiology, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX, USA; South Texas Veterans Health Care System, San Antonio, TX, USA.
authors.forename: P T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Fox
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), 52425 Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schleicher
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), 52425 Jülich, Germany; Dept. of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, RWTH University Aachen, 52074 Aachen, Germany; JARA, Juelich-Aachen Research Alliance, Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zilles
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), 52425 Jülich, Germany; JARA, Juelich-Aachen Research Alliance, Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich, Germany; C. and O. Vogt Institute for Brain Research, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, 40001 Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Amunts
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D008875:Middle Aged