Abstract
The inferior parietal lobe (IPL) is a key neural substrate underlying diverse mental processes, from basic attention to language and social cognition that define human interactions. Its putative domain-global role appears to tie into poorly understood functional differences between both hemispheres. Across attentional, semantic, and social cognitive experiments, our study explored hemispheric specialization within the IPL. The task specificity of IPL subregion activity was substantiated by distinct predictive signatures identified by multivariate pattern-learning algorithms. Moreover, the left and right IPL exerted domain-specific modulation of effective connectivity among their subregions. Task-evoked functional interactions of the anterior and posterior IPL subregions involved recruitment of distributed cortical partners. While each anterior IPL subregion was engaged in strongly lateralized coupling links, both posterior subregions showed more symmetric coupling patterns across hemispheres. Our collective results shed light on how under-appreciated lateralization effects within the IPL support some of the most distinctive human mental capacities.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
↵# shared senior authorship
