Although ventral parietal cortex (VPC) activations can be found in a variety of cognitive domains, recipe these activations have been typically attributed to cognitive operations specific to each domain. In this article, we propose a hypothesis that can account for VPC activations across all the cognitive domains reviewed. We first review VPC activations in the domains of perceptual and motorreorienting, episodic memory retrieval, language and number processing, theory of mind, and episodic memory encoding. Then, we consider the localization of VPC activations across domains and conclude that they are largely overlapping with some differences around the edges. Finally, we assess how well four different hypotheses of VPC function can explain findings in various
domains and conclude that a bottom-up attention hypothesis provides the most complete and parsimonious account.
Cabeza, R., Ciaramelli, E., Moscovitch, M. (2012). Cognitive contributions of the ventral parietal cortex: an integrative theoretical account. TICS. June. Vol 16, Number 6. 338-352.
After this original paper was published in Trends in Cognitive Science (TICS), a group of researchers wrote a paper outlining four objections to our theory. We then published a response paper, which can be found HERE.