Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10316/105292
Title: Reading and Calculation Neural Systems and Their Weighted Adaptive Use for Programming Skills
Authors: Castelhano, João 
Duarte, Isabel C. 
Durães, João 
Madeira, Henrique 
Castelo-Branco, Miguel 
Issue Date: 2021
Publisher: Hindawi
Project: BIGDATIMAGE (CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER, 000016) 
DSAIPA/DS/0041/2020 
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/6817 - DCRRNI ID/UID/NEU/04539/2013/PT 
PCIF/SSO/0082/2018 
UIDB/04950/2020 
Serial title, monograph or event: Neural Plasticity
Volume: 2021
Abstract: Software programming is a modern activity that poses strong challenges to the human brain. The neural mechanisms that support this novel cognitive faculty are still unknown. On the other hand, reading and calculation abilities represent slightly less recent human activities, in which neural correlates are relatively well understood. We hypothesize that calculus and reading brain networks provide joint underpinnings with distinctly weighted contributions which concern programming tasks, in particular concerning error identification. Based on a meta-analysis of the core regions involved in both reading and math and recent experimental evidence on the neural basis of programming tasks, we provide a theoretical account that integrates the role of these networks in program understanding. In this connectivity-based framework, error-monitoring processing regions in the frontal cortex influence the insula, which is a pivotal hub within the salience network, leading into efficient causal modulation of parietal networks involved in reading and mathematical operations. The core role of the anterior insula and anterior midcingulate cortex is illuminated by their relation to performance in error processing and novelty. The larger similarity that we observed between the networks underlying calculus and programming skills does not exclude a more limited but clear overlap with the reading network, albeit with differences in hemispheric lateralization when compared with prose reading. Future work should further elucidate whether other features of computer program understanding also use distinct weights of phylogenetically "older systems" for this recent human activity, based on the adjusting influence of fronto-insular networks. By unraveling the neural correlates of program understanding and bug detection, this work provides a framework to understand error monitoring in this novel complex faculty.
URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10316/105292
ISSN: 1687-5443
2090-5904
DOI: 10.1155/2021/5596145
Rights: openAccess
Appears in Collections:I&D CNC - Artigos em Revistas Internacionais
I&D CISUC - Artigos em Revistas Internacionais
I&D ICNAS - Artigos em Revistas Internacionais
I&D CIBIT - Artigos em Revistas Internacionais

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