***(A)*** *What are the functions of these brain areas?* *Claustrum:* Function of the **ventral claustrum**: * It's responsible for conscious sensations and rewarding behavior. The claustrum is regarded as a multi-modal information processing network. It receives input from almost all regions of cortex and projects back to almost all regions of cortex. * Cross-modal Processing: The claustrum is involved in integrating information across different sensory modalities, such as combining visual and auditory data. * Coordination and Synchronization: It acts like a conductor, synchronizing the activity of various cortical regions to ensure coherent and unified perceptions. * Binding Attributes: The claustrum binds different attributes of objects (e.g., color, motion, sound) within and across sensory modalities, facilitating a holistic perception of objects and events. * Wide Connectivity: It connects with many cortical regions, which suggests it plays a role in bringing together diverse information streams from across the brain. * Intra-claustral Interactions: The claustrum may have specialized mechanisms, such as extensive axonal arbours, unique interneurons, dendro-dendritic synapses, and gap junctions, to facilitate the wide dissemination and integration of information within itself. * Synchronization of Neuronal Firing: Through gap junctions, the claustrum may help synchronize the firing of interneurons, which could be crucial for the synchronization of cortical neuron populations. * Cortico-claustral projections are projections from somatosensory, motor and visual cortex exhibit somatotopic and retinotopic organization. Main subcortical projections originate in the thalamus, hypothalamus and amygdala. Efferent projections are distributed upon the entire neocortex and terminate in layer 4. Subcortical projections terminate in the amygdala and in several thalamic nuclei ([source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569501))