Abstract
The posteromedial cortex (PMC)—comprising posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), retrosplenial cortex (RSC), and the precuneus (PrC)—is perhaps best known for its involvement in the default mode network. There is no consensus regarding the specific functions of PMC, however, and its component regions each exhibit distinct, but partially overlapping functional profiles. To date, there has been minimal effort to disentangle the functions of these regions. In the present study, we use Neurosynth (http://neurosynth.org) to conduct an unbiased meta-analysis of the PMC based on fMRI coactivation and semantic information extracted from 11,406 studies. Our analyses revealed six PMC clusters with distinct functional profiles: superior and inferior dorsal PCC, anterior and posterior PrC, ventral PCC, and RSC. We discuss these findings in the context of the existing literature and suggest several fruitful avenues for continued research.
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Acknowledgements
Research by Sven Vanneste and Yuefeng Huang was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office (BTO) TNT program under the auspices of Dr. Doug Weber and Tristan McClure-Begley through the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, Pacific Grant/Contract no. N66001-17-2-4011. Research by Sven Vanneste was also supported by Darrell Royal Foundation. Research by Jeffrey Hullfish was supported by the Eugene McDermott Graduate Fellowship (201501). The authors would like to thank Alejandro de la Vega for his help troubleshooting the code via email correspondence and his thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.
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The authors declare no competing financial interests. Code and data are available freely at https://github.com/adelavega/neurosynth-mfc and https://github.com/adelavega/neurosynth-lfc. Permissions (https://github.com/adelavega/neurosynth-mfc/blob/master/LICENSE and https://github.com/adelavega/neurosynth-lfc/blob/master/LICENSE) are granted to replicate these analyses on any given brain region at any desired spatial granularity. This material has not been peer reviewed.
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Huang, Y., Hullfish, J., De Ridder, D. et al. Meta-analysis of functional subdivisions within human posteromedial cortex. Brain Struct Funct 224, 435–452 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-018-1781-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-018-1781-3