Cognitive atlasing: From images to concepts and vice-versa: Behavioral profiling across large-scale activation data to understand cognitive information processing

A defining aspect of brain organization is its spatial heterogeneity portraying multiple topographies on different spatial scales and along different spatial axes. With brain parcellation techniques, this complexity can be disentangled by defining regions and subregions of relative homogeneity with regard to specific neurobiological properties. By using large-scale activation databases, the derived regions can be characterized with regard to the associated behavioral functions. By applying such “behavioral profiling” approaches to parcellation maps, qualitative changes in the pattern of behavioral associations across regions can be examined. Here we will illustrate the application of these approaches to study information processing along the anterior-posterior dimension in a cortical region, as well as in a subcortical region. The findings, beyond confirming the scientific desuetude of one-to-one mapping between psychological concepts and brain location, allow inferences about the dimensions along which cognitive processing changes across the brain.