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.
Posterior cingulate cortex
The posterior cingulate cortex has been linked by lesion studies to spatial memory, configural learning, and maintenance of discriminative avoidance learning. More recently the PCC was shown to display intense activity when autobiographical memories (such as those concerning friends and family) are recalled successfully. In a study involving autobiographical recollection, the caudal part of the left posterior cingulate cortex was the only brain structure highly active in all subjects. Furthermore, the PCC does not show this same activation during attempted but unsuccessful retrieval, implying an important role in successful memory retrieval (see below: Alzheimer’s Disease).