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 is highly connected and one of the most metabolically active regions in the brain, but there is no consensus as to its cognitive role. Cerebral blood flow and metabolic rate in the posterior cingulate cortex are approximately 40% higher than average across the brain. The posterior cingulate cortex also has high functional connectivity, signifying extensive intrinsic connectivity networks (networks of brain regions involved in a range of tasks that share common spatio-temporal patterns of activity).