How Do We Connect Brain Areas with Cognitive Functions? The Past, the Present and the Future

Abstract

One of the central goals of cognitive neuroscience is to understand how structure relates to function. Over the past century, clinical studies on patients with lesions have provided key insights into the relationship between brain areas and behavior. Since the early efforts for characterization of cognitive functions focused on localization, we provide an account of cognitive function in terms of localization. Next, using body perception as an example, we summarize the contemporary techniques. Finally, we outline the trajectory of current progress into the future and discuss the implications for clinical and basic neuroscience.

Keywords

• cognition
• cognitive functions
• localization
• lesion studies
• body perception
• functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)