| Brodmann area 8 | |
|---|---|
 Image of brain with Brodmann area 8 shown in red | |
 Image of brain with Brodmann area 8 shown in orange | |
| Details | |
| Identifiers | |
| Latin | area frontalis intermedia |
| NeuroNames | 1034 |
| NeuroLex ID | birnlex_1739 |
| FMA | 68605 |
| Anatomical terms of neuroanatomy | |
Brodmann area 8 is one ofBrodmann'scytologically defined regions of the brain. It is involved in planning complex movements.[citation needed]
Brodmann area 8, or BA8, is part of thefrontalcortex in thehuman brain. Situated just anterior to the premotor cortex (BA6), it includes thefrontal eye fields (so-named because they are believed to play an important role in the control of eye movements). Damage to this area, by stroke, trauma or infection, causes tonic deviation of the eyes towards the side of the injury. This finding occurs during the first few hours of an acute event such as cerebrovascular infarct (stroke) or hemorrhage (bleeding).
The termBrodmann area 8 refers to acytoarchitecturally defined portion of the frontal lobe of theguenon. Located rostral to thearcuate sulcus, it was not considered by Brodmann-1909 to be topographicallyhomologous to the intermediate frontal area 8 of the human.
Distinctive features (Brodmann-1905): compared toBrodmann area 6-1909, area 8 has a diffuse but clearly present internalgranular layer (IV); sublayer 3b of the externalpyramidal layer (III) has densely distributed medium-sizedpyramidal cells; the internal pyramidal layer (V) has largerganglion cells densely distributed with somegranule cells interspersed; the external granular layer (II) is denser and broader; cell layers are more distinct; the abundance of cells is somewhat greater.[1]
The area is involved ineye movements and possibly in the management of uncertainty. Afunctional magnetic resonance imaging study demonstrated thatBrodmann area 8 activation occurs when test subjects experience uncertainty, and that with increasing uncertainty there is increasing activation.[2]
An alternative interpretation is that this activation in the frontal cortex encodes hope, a higher-order expectation positively correlated with uncertainty.[3]
This article incorporatestext available under theCC BY 3.0 license."BrainInfo". Archived from the original on December 7, 2013. RetrievedDecember 3, 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)