Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine, St.
Louis, have identified areas of the brain which are activated in
a variety of cognitive tasks, such as reading and analyzing
pictures, and which may be 'executive' areas required for
performing such tasks. The planning and execution of any task
involves the processing of information by multiple brain regions
and circuits acting in parallel. Cognitive tasks require the
brain to select and configure the appropriate data processing
resources; a 'task set' controls the moment-to-moment processing
of data involved in the execution of a particular task. Using
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Nico Dosenbach and
his colleagues have shown that the dorsal anterior cingulate
cortex and operculum were consistently activiated when their 183
subjects began working on a cognitive task. The findings suggest
that these areas are, effectively, the 'executives,' which
determine the order in which the brain regions and circuits
contributing to a partic