Conjunction and disjunction in brain areas associated with mathematical operations: Evidence from fMRI meta-analyses

Brain Structure and Function. 2018. P. 1–45.

We solve problems with numbers on a daily basis. Although we know that a large set of

brain areas are implicated in mathematical problem solving it remains unclear how

different arithmetic operations are represented in the brain. Using activation likelihood

estimation (ALE) meta-analyses we compare and contrast brain regions associated with

solving problems of addition, subtraction and multiplication. We demonstrate that although

some brain regions are common they are at least separable in terms of spatial extend of

clusters and hemispheric asymmetry. Common regions include the parietal (Brodmann

Area (BA) 7, BA 40), prefrontal (BA 9) and insular cortices, and distinct regions include the

angular gyrus (BA 39), basal ganglia and cerebellum. We propose topographical atlases,

in stereotaxic coordinates, for mathematical processes in healthy adults and discuss

findings with reference to models of mental arithmetic and cognition.

Keywords: fMRI, mathematical cognition, activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis, laterality indices

Publication based on the results of: Brain responses to mathematical operations of increasing complexity (2018)