Cognitive Functions
The right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) has been typically implicated in go/no go tasks. In such a task, the participant has to inhibit a prepotent response (for instance stop pressing a button when a red signal appears). It seems that the same area is also implicated in risk aversion: a study found that higher risk aversion correlated with higher activity at IFG. This might be explained as an inhibition signal to accept a risky option. Disruption of activity of this area with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation or Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) indeed leads to change in risk attitudes, as behaviorally demonstrated by choices over risky outcomes. The left IFG is extremely important for language production and verb comprehension (left side corresponds to the 'dominant side', for right-handed persons). Commonly known as "Broca's Area", persons with damage in this region often have non-fluent aphasia. With non-fluent aphasia, speech is notably difficult to produce but the speech that is produced is high in content compared to Wernicke's aphasiacs (persons with damage to the posterior language regions) whose aphasia is considered "fluent" yet rambling.
Read more about this topic: Inferior Frontal Gyrus
Famous quotes containing the words cognitive and/or functions:
“Realism holds that things known may continue to exist unaltered when they are not known, or that things may pass in and out of the cognitive relation without prejudice to their reality, or that the existence of a thing is not correlated with or dependent upon the fact that anybody experiences it, perceives it, conceives it, or is in any way aware of it.”
—William Pepperell Montague (1842–1910)
“Adolescents, for all their self-involvement, are emerging from the self-centeredness of childhood. Their perception of other people has more depth. They are better equipped at appreciating others’ reasons for action, or the basis of others’ emotions. But this maturity functions in a piecemeal fashion. They show more understanding of their friends, but not of their teachers.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)