The cross-domain functional organization of posterior lateral temporal cortex: insights from ALE meta-analyses of 7 cognitive domains spanning 12,000 participants

Abstract

The posterior lateral temporal cortex is implicated in many verbal, nonverbal, and social cognitive domains and processes. Yet without directly comparing these disparate domains, the region's organization remains unclear; do distinct processes engage discrete subregions, or could different domains engage shared neural correlates and processes? Here, using activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses, the bilateral posterior lateral temporal cortex subregions engaged in 7 domains were directly compared. These domains comprised semantics, semantic control, phonology, biological motion, face processing, theory of mind, and representation of tools. Although phonology and biological motion were predominantly associated with distinct regions, other domains implicated overlapping areas, perhaps due to shared underlying processes. Theory of mind recruited regions implicated in semantic representation, tools engaged semantic control areas, and faces engaged subregions for biological motion and theory of mind. This cross-domain approach provides insight into how posterior lateral temporal cortex is organized and why.

Keywords: language; meta-analysis; semantic cognition; social cognition; temporal lobe.

Fig. 1

Activation likelihood estimation maps for each of the 7 domains, showing clusters of consistent activation across studies in the left hemisphere, at a voxel-level cluster-forming threshold of P < 0.001, and a cluster threshold of P < 0.05 (FWE corrected). Top left: the region of interest mask used for all analyses, with only the left hemisphere visible here.

Fig. 2

Formal contrast analyses between pairs of domains in the left hemisphere at a voxel-level threshold of P < 0.001 (uncorrected). For each pair of images, left: pairwise overlays of ALE maps, showing domain A in red and domain B in green, with overlap in yellow. For each pair of images, right: results of formal contrast and conjunction analyses; domain A > B is shown in red, B > A in green, and their conjunction in blue.

Fig. 3

Activation likelihood estimation maps for the 5 domains with significant results in the right hemisphere, at a voxel-level cluster-forming threshold of P < 0.001 and a cluster threshold of P < 0.05 (FWE corrected). Top: overlap between domains, without (top left) and with (top right) exclusions designed to minimize overlap in the included content. Bottom rows: ALE maps for the 5 domains, plus ALE maps constructed using reduced datasets for 3 of the domains. For domains not shown (semantic control and tools), no significant activation likelihood was found in the right hemisphere.

Fig. 4

Formal contrast analyses between pairs of domains with overlap in the right hemisphere at a voxel-level threshold of P < 0.001 (uncorrected). For each pair of images, left: pairwise overlays of ALE maps, showing domain A in red and domain B in green, with overlap in yellow. For each pair of images, right: results of formal contrast and conjunction analyses; domain A > B is shown in red, B > A in green, and their conjunction in blue.

Fig. 5

A synthesis of results across the 7 domains in the bilateral posterior lateral temporal cortex ROI. Regions with distinct activation are seen for some domains, e.g. phonology and biological motion, whereas some domains appear subsumed by others, such as tools by semantic control (indicated by dashed lines). To aid interpretation based on the full set of analyses assessing and comparing each domain, this synthesis figure comprises a number of clusters from ALE analyses of a single domain (semantic control, biological motion, theory of mind, and left-hemisphere phonology), as well as the results of subtraction and conjunction analyses between domains (for the phonology and semantics clusters in bilateral STS/STG).