The Function of Right Frontal Lobe and Awake Surgery

Abstract

  The right frontal lobe functions as the social brain and enables humans to engage in social life smoothly. The right frontal lobe is also involved in motor function and higher brain functions such as working memory, nonlinguistic semantic memory, spatial cognition, social cognition, attention, and executive function. Cerebral white matter in the right frontal lobe contains fiber networks affecting the pyramidal tract, frontal aslant tract, fronto-striatal tract, superior longitudinal fasciculus, arcuate fasciculus, cingulum, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, and uncinate fascicle. Each fasciculus affects motor, motor initiation, motor control, spatial cognition, mentalizing, attention, nonlinguistic semantic memory, and episodic memory, respectively. In awake surgery for lesions in the right frontal lobe, suitable tasks should be chosen based upon this knowledge concerning the function of gray matter and fiber networks close to the lesion.