A Place for Zero in the Brain

Trends Cogn Sci. 2016 Aug;20(8):563-564. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2016.06.006. Epub 2016 Jul 2.

Abstract

It has long been thought that the primary cognitive and neural systems responsible for processing numerosities are not predisposed to encode empty sets (i.e., numerosity zero). A new study challenges this view by demonstrating that zero is translated into an abstract quantity along the numerical continuum by the primate parietofrontal magnitude system.

Keywords: number line; parietofrontal system; zero numerosity.

Publication types

  • Comment

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Brain / physiology*
  • Brain Mapping
  • Humans
  • Mathematical Concepts*
  • Primates