Bilateral cingulotomy
Neuroimaging also uncovered different sub-regions in the anterior cingulate cortex itself based on their function. These studies showed that the caudal part of the anterior cingulate cortex plays a more important function in cognitive activities that involve attention, salience, interference and response competition. These results combined with electrophysiological investigation of the function of neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex have provided insights that can be used in the improvement of cingulotomy performed on patients treated for OCD. The basis behind this idea is the fact that a variation of certain tasks, Emotional Stroop tasks (ES), which have been particularly identified as exerting effects in OCD patients activate neurons in the more rostral part of the anterior cingulate cortex. Thus, theoretically if bilateral cingulotomy is performed in such patient in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, better results should be obtained.
Cingulate cortex
People with schizophrenia have differences in the anterior cingulate gyrus when compared with controls. The anterior cingulate gyrus was found to be smaller in people with schizophrenia. The volume of the gray matter in the anterior cingulate gyrus was found to be lower in people with schizophrenia. Healthy females have larger rostral anterior cingulate gyrus than males, this sex difference in size is absent in people with schizophrenia. The metabolic rate of glucose was lower in the left anterior cingulate gyrus and in the right posterior cingulate gyrus.