Despite the fact that human Brodmann area 6 (
BA
6
), a traditional "motor" area, is active during higher motor control involving various cognitive operations, the functional specialization within
BA
6
in the cognitive domain is essentially unknown. Furthermore, its functional relevance in cognition has been questioned because brain activity in
BA
6
during cognitive tasks has often been explained away as a concomitant, latent motor process. Therefore, we examined the structural-functional relationship of human
BA
6
in nonmotor cognitive functions and its functional relevance using both functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Subjects performed mental-operation (MO) tasks in which they serially updated verbal and spatial mental representations (MO-v and MO-s). In the fMRI experiments, activity in the medial
BA
6
was more increased in MO-v, whereas the activity in the lateral
BA
6
in both hemispheres was more in MO-s. Low-frequency rTMS to the medial
BA
6
disrupted only the performance of MO-v, whereas rTMS to the lateral
BA
6
in both hemispheres disrupted only MO-s. Hence the converging results demonstrate a functional double dissociation in which medial
BA
6
has a critical role in updating verbal information and lateral
BA
6
has a role in updating spatial information. The present study provides direct physiological evidence of modality-specific cognitive function within human
BA
6
.
[Jpn J Physiol 55 Suppl:S21 (2005)]
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