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Originally published in Science Express on 7 May 2009
Science 19 June 2009:
Vol. 324. no. 5934, pp. 1583 - 1585
DOI: 10.1126/science.1171599
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Reports

Recruitment of an Area Involved in Eye Movements During Mental Arithmetic

André Knops,1,2,3,* Bertrand Thirion,2,4 Edward M. Hubbard,1,2,3 Vincent Michel,2,3,4 Stanislas Dehaene1,2,3,5

Throughout the history of mathematics, concepts of number and space have been tightly intertwined. We tested the hypothesis that cortical circuits for spatial attention contribute to mental arithmetic in humans. We trained a multivariate classifier algorithm to infer the direction of an eye movement, left or right, from the brain activation measured in the posterior parietal cortex. Without further training, the classifier then generalized to an arithmetic task. Its left versus right classification could be used to sort out subtraction versus addition trials, whether performed with symbols or with sets of dots. These findings are consistent with the suggestion that mental arithmetic co-opts parietal circuitry associated with spatial coding.

1 INSERM, Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
2 Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA), I2BM, NeuroSpin, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
3 Université Paris-Sud, F-91405 Orsay, France.
4 Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique Saclay–Île de France, Orsay, France.
5 Collège de France, Paris, France.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: knops.andre{at}gmail.com

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Superior Parietal Cortex Is Critical for the Manipulation of Information in Working Memory.
M. Koenigs, A. K. Barbey, B. R. Postle, and J. Grafman (2009)
J. Neurosci. 29, 14980-14986
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