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 also been firmly linked to emotional salience. Thus, it has been hypothesized that the emotional importance of autobiographical memories may contribute to the strength and consistency of activity in the posterior cingulate cortex upon successful recollection of these memories. The posterior cingulate cortex is significantly bilaterally activated by emotional stimuli, independent of valence (positive or negative). This is in contrast to other structures in the limbic system, such as the amygdala, which responded disproportionately to negative stimuli, or the left frontal pole, which activated only in response to positive stimuli. These results support the hypothesis that the posterior cingulate cortex mediates interactions between emotion and memory.