Brain areas associated with numbers and calculations in children: Meta-analyses of fMRI studies

Abstract

Children use numbers every day and typically receive formal mathematical training from an early age, as it is a main subject in school curricula. Despite an increase in children neuroimaging studies, a comprehensive neuropsychological model of mathematical functions in children is lacking. Using quantitative meta-analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, we identify concordant brain areas across articles that adhere to a set of selection criteria (e.g., whole-brain analysis, coordinate reports) and report brain activity to tasks that involve processing symbolic and non-symbolic numbers with and without formal mathematical operations, which we called respectively number tasks and calculation tasks. We present data on children 14 years and younger, who solved these tasks. Results show activity in parietal (e.g., inferior parietal lobule and precuneus) and frontal (e.g., superior and medial frontal gyri) cortices, core areas related to mental-arithmetic, as well as brain regions such as the insula and claustrum, which are not typically discussed as part of mathematical problem solving models. We propose a topographical atlas of mathematical processes in children, discuss findings within a developmental constructivist theoretical model, and suggest practical methodological considerations for future studies.

Brain responses to social norms: Meta‐analyses of fMRI studies

“…Furthermore, people with higher egoistical motivation, who more frequently violate social norms, have weaker connectivity between these regions (Hein et al, ). This is consistent with the hypothesis that the cingulate gyrus and insula are involved in conversion of affective goals into cognitive goals (Arsalidou & Pascual‐Leone, ) as a feeling of effort in cognitively demanding situations (Arsalidou et al, ). A generic role of the insula as part of a salience network has been suggested (Menon & Uddin, ; Uddin, ).…”

“…A contrast analysis was performed on the thresholded ALE maps of social norm representation and norm violation categories to identify concordance that was common (i.e., conjunction) and different for these categories. Because ALE maps are already thresholded for multiple comparisons a threshold of uncorrected 0.01, with 5000 permutations, minimum volume 50 mm 2 was used (e.g.,Arsalidou, Pawliw-Levac, Sadeghi, & Pascual-Leone, 2017;Sokolowski, Fias, Mousa, & Ansari, 2017).…”

Mapping numerical perception and operations in relation to functional and anatomical landmarks of human parietal cortex

“…In the current study we tested whether numerical perception and different numerical operations activate overlapping brain areas, as previously suggested by coarse-scale quantitative meta-analyses (Arsalidou and Taylor, 2011;Arsalidou et al, 2018) or whether a finer-scale pattern of sub-regional specialization within the parietal cortex can be revealed by the enhanced spatial resolution provided by ultra-high field fMRI combined with cortical surface-based analysis. To more precisely localize the observed activation foci and shed new light on their potential relation with known sub-regions of macaque cortex, we further related activations to anatomical and functional markers on the cortical surface, with the help of two atlases based on curvature and visual topography.…”

“…Recently, two meta-analyses quantified the degree of overlap of the parietal activations elicited by different numerical tasks and concluded that the very same regions are recruited, namely the inferior and superior parietal lobules (IPL and SPL) which delimit the intraparietal sulcus (IPS), during calculation and non arithmetics-related numerical task, both in adults (Arsalidou and Taylor, 2011) and in children (Arsalidou et al, 2018).…”

Neuronal Responses in Posterior Parietal Cortex during Learning of Implied Serial Order

“…Neurons related to the representation of visual quantity have been described in the parietal cortex of macaques (Nieder et al, 2002;Nieder, 2013;Roitman et al, 2007Roitman et al, , 2012. This representation may support simple arithmetic operations that are more fully developed in humans (Fehr et al, 2007;Rosenberg-Lee et al, 2011;Arsalidou et al, 2018).…”