The Neural Bases of Drawing. A Meta-analysis and a Systematic Literature Review of Neurofunctional Studies in Healthy Individuals

Abstract

Drawing is a multi-component process requiring a wide range of cognitive abilities. Several studies on patients with focal brain lesions and functional neuroimaging studies on healthy individuals demonstrated that drawing is associated with a wide brain network. However, the neural structures specifically related to drawing remain to be better comprehended. We conducted a systematic review complemented by a meta-analytic approach to identify the core neural underpinnings related to drawing in healthy individuals. In analysing the selected studies, we took into account the type of the control task employed (i.e. motor or non-motor) and the type of drawn stimulus (i.e. geometric, figurative, or nonsense). The results showed that a fronto-parietal network, particularly on the left side of the brain, was involved in drawing when compared with other motor activities. Drawing figurative images additionally activated the inferior frontal gyrus and the inferior temporal cortex, brain areas involved in selection of semantic features of objects and in visual semantic processing. Moreover, copying more than drawing from memory was associated with the activation of extrastriate cortex (BA 18, 19). The activation likelihood estimation coordinate-based meta-analysis revealed a core neural network specifically associated with drawing which included the premotor area (BA 6) and the inferior parietal lobe (BA 40) bilaterally, and the left precuneus (BA 7).These results showed that a fronto-parietal network is specifically involved in drawing and suggested that a crucial role is played by the (left) inferior parietal lobe, consistent with classical literature on constructional apraxia.

Keywords: Constructional tasks; Drawing; Meta-analysis; Parietal lobes.

Fig. 1

Instances of ‘drawing’ tasks, that were the focus of the study, and of graphic ‘non-drawing’ tasks that were only considered when compared to ‘drawing’ tasks proper; some studies investigated imagined rather than actual drawing to avoid artifacts related to hand and arm movements

Fig. 2

Flowchart of the selection process of primary studies

Fig. 3

Results of the general ALE meta-analysis. Representative slices are displayed on 2D sagittal sections, with x MNI coordinate shown on the top of each, and on a 3D render. The color bar indicates activation likelihood estimation (ALE) values