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The role of the human ventral premotor cortex in counting successive stimuli

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Abstract

Adult humans have the ability to count large numbers of successive stimuli exactly. What brain areas underlie this uniquely human process? To identify the candidate brain areas, we first used functional magnetic resonance imaging, and found that the upper part of the left ventral premotor cortex was preferentially activated during counting of successive sensory stimuli presented 10–22 times, while the area was not activated during small number counting up to 4. We then used transcranial magnetic stimulation to assess the necessity of this area, and found that stimulation of this area preferentially disrupted subjects’ exact large number enumeration. Stimulation to the area affected neither subjects’ number word perception nor their ability to perform a non-numerical sequential letter task. While further investigation is necessary to determine the precise role of the left ventral premotor cortex, the results suggest that the area is indispensably involved for large number counting of successive stimuli, at least for the types of tasks in this study.

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Acknowledgments

We thank B.J. Richmond, H. Shibasaki, S. Yamane, and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, T. Kitago, T. Wu, K. Miura, T. Kochiyama, N. Dang, D. Schoenberg for their help. The study was partly supported by a NINDS intramural competitive fellowship award (USA), a SUZUKEN Memorial Foundation, and a MEXT Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas—System Study on Higher-Order Brain Functions—#17022046 (Japan) to K.K.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Motor Control Section, Medical Neurology Branch, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, 20892-1428, USA

    Kenji Kansaku, Benjamin Carver, Ari Johnson & Mark Hallett

  2. Division of Cerebral Integration, Department of Cerebral Research, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan

    Kenji Kansaku & Norihiro Sadato

  3. Cognitive Functions Section, Department of Rehabilitation for Sensory Functions, Research Institute of National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities, 4-1 Namiki, Tokorozawa, Saitama, 359-8555, Japan

    Kenji Kansaku

  4. Neuroscience Research Institute, National Institute of AIST, Tsukuba, 305-8568, Japan

    Keiji Matsuda

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  1. Kenji Kansaku
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  2. Benjamin Carver
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  3. Ari Johnson
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  4. Keiji Matsuda
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  5. Norihiro Sadato
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  6. Mark Hallett
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Correspondence to Kenji Kansaku.

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Kansaku, K., Carver, B., Johnson, A. et al. The role of the human ventral premotor cortex in counting successive stimuli. Exp Brain Res 178, 339–350 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-006-0736-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-006-0736-8

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