to tune the oscillations of the other subcortical structures. From this perspec-
tive, its efferent role can be regarded as setting the dynamic oscillatory networks
subcortically, and its afferent role as making them robust brain constellations.
Thus, the ‘tuning-role’ can also shed light to the aforementioned ‘selectivity’,
since the transthalamic network orchestration is echoed in the neocortex
(we could speak here of an ‘allocator role’).
The orchestrator role of the thalamus makes it a key node in a variety of
networks identified in the literature independently of language: the global
workspace model formulated by Dehaene et al. (1998) and also the model
of Tononi and Edelman (1998) in the domain of consciousness, the multiple-
demand system of Duncan (2010, 2013), the ‘connective core’ model of
Shana han (2012), or the integrative architect ure for general intelligence and
executive function in Barbey et al. (2012). It is also likely impli cated in the
functioning of the top-down, frontoparietal attentional regulation network
(Miller and Buschman 2012), the “frontoparieta l control system” (Vincent
et al. 2008), and the already mention ed default mode network. For any of
these networks, the thalamus no doubt qualifies as a “high Hub Traffic”
node in the “rich club”, “high cost, high-capacity backbone for global brain
communication” in van den Heuvel and Sporns (2011) and van den Heuvel
et al. (2012).
Though not iden tical, all these networks have core properties that we wish
to attribute to the combinatorial power of the language faculty. Thus, many of
the networks just cited are said to be involved in mind-wandering and inner
speech (Gruberger et al. 2011), to be uniquely positi oned to integrate informa-
tion coming from various systems and to “ adjudicate between potentially com-
peting inner-versus outer-directed processes” (Vincent et al. 2008), to be
characterized by an “amplification, global propagation and integration of brain
signals”, “ignit[ing] a network of distributed areas”, implicating in the “ tem-
porary maintenance, global sharing, and flexible routing” of information (pas-
sages from Dehaene et al. 2014 defining “conscious perce ption”).
Much as Miller (2013) defines the “top-down attention control”, the brain
network envisaged here is meant to be responsible for “intelligent behavior”,
understood as “the human ability to adaptively implement a wide variety of
tasks” (Cole et al. 2013). As Duncan (2013) writes in the context of his fr on-
toparietal Multiple-Demand system, which he takes to provide “a core basis for
the psychometric concept of fluid intelligence”, “accompanying activity is com-
monly seen in subcortical regions including basal ganglia, thalamus, and cerebel-
lum.” In this context, Bohlken et al. (2013) write that “of all subc ortical volumes
measured, only thalamus volume is significantly correlated with intellectual
functioning”. Bohlken et al. remind us that the thalamus, with its widespread
cortical connections, is likely to play a key role in human intelligence. Con-
nectivity indeed appears to be the key, given the claims that more efficient or
long-range connectivity is associated with higher intelligence test performance,
as highlighted in Duncan 2013 and references therein, especiall y van den Heuvel
et al. 2009. (Incidentally, mo re recent studies provide evidence of a strong
236 Constantina Theofanopoulou and Cedric Boeckx