Large-scale brain network involved in sustained attention and complex cognition
The salience network is theorised to mediate switching between the default mode network and frontoparietal network (central executive network).[1][2][3]
The FPN is one of three networks in the so-called triple-network model, along with the salience network and the default mode network (DMN).[6] The salience network facilitates switching between the FPN and DMN.[1][2]
The FPN is involved in executive function and goal-oriented, cognitively demanding tasks.[7] It is crucial for rule-based problem solving, actively maintaining and manipulating information in working memory and making decisions in the context of goal-directed behaviour.[1] Based on current cognitive demands, the FPN flexibly divides into two subsystems that connect to other networks: the default mode network for introspective processes and the dorsal attention network for perceptual attention.[8]
The term central executive network (CEN) is generally equivalent to the frontoparietal network in literature,[9][10][11] distinguishing it from the dorsal attention network (DAN), with which it has several similarities,[5] though sometimes it has been used to include the DAN.[11]
The FPN has fewer similarities with the salience network (which has also been equated with the cingulo-opercular network or ventral attention network[7]). Regardless, it has sometimes been grouped together with either the DAN or the salience network (usually the latter[12]) under the name executive control network (ECN).[5] The term frontoparietal control network (FPCN) has also been used, generally also for a grouping of the FPN and the salience network.[5][12]
Other names for the FPN have included the multiple-demand system, extrinsic mode network, domain-general system and cognitive control network.[7]
In 2019, Uddin et al. proposed that lateral frontoparietal network (L-FPN) be used as the standard name for this network.[7]
