Bilateral cingulotomy
Studies in patients that were a subject to bilateral cingulotomy, that involved fMRI analyses, showed that the anterior cingulate cortex has a key role in cognitive control and is highly likely to be involved in the control of attentional response, whereas the dorsal part of that region of the brain was not identified to be involved in such a process, although this is still under dispute. The function of the dorsal part of the cingulate cortex was connected to the sorting out and processing of conflicting information signals. In addition, neuroimaging studies also indicated that the anterior cingulate cortex participates in the modulation of cortical regions that are of higher order as well as sensory processing areas.
Stroop effect
Brain imaging techniques including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and positron emission tomography (PET) have shown that there are two main areas in the brain that are involved in the processing of the Stroop task. They are the anterior cingulate cortex, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. More specifically, while both are activated when resolving conflicts and catching errors, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex assists in memory and other executive functions, while the anterior cingulate cortex is used to select an appropriate response and allocate attentional resources.