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.
Identity disturbance
One critical system implicated in this line of research involves the cortical midline structures (CMS), which includes the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, and the posterior cingulate cortex including the adjacent precuneus. Greater activation in these structures has been found when people made trait judgements about themselves as opposed to others, as well as during a resting state ("see" default mode network) or self-referential activity compared to when involved in a non-self-referential task. In addition to this correlational evidence linking these regions to our self-identity, one study using transcranial magnetic stimulation to transiently disturb neural activity in the medial parietal region of cortex found that this disruption lead to a decreased ability to retrieve previous judgements of oneself compared to the retrieval of previous judgements of others.