Subdivision of the occipital lobes: An anatomical and functional MRI connectivity study

Michel Thiebaut de Schotten, Marika Urbanski, Romain Valabregue, Dimitri J. Bayle, Emmanuelle Volle
Cortex. 2014-07-01; 56: 121-137
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2012.12.007

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1. Cortex. 2014 Jul;56:121-37. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2012.12.007. Epub 2012 Dec 19.

Subdivision of the occipital lobes: an anatomical and functional MRI connectivity
study.

Thiebaut de Schotten M(1), Urbanski M(2), Valabregue R(3), Bayle DJ(4), Volle
E(5).

Author information:
(1)Natbrainlab, Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute
of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, UK; Université Pierre et Marie
Curie-Paris 6, Centre de Recherche de l’Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle
épinière (CRICM), UMRS 975, Paris, France; Inserm, U 975, Paris, France; CNRS,
UMR 7225, Paris, France. Electronic address: .
(2)Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Centre de Recherche de l’Institut du
Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière (CRICM), UMRS 975, Paris, France; Inserm, U 975,
Paris, France; Service de Médecine et de Réadaptation, Hôpitaux de Saint-Maurice,
Saint-Maurice, France.
(3)Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Centre de Recherche de l’Institut du
Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière (CRICM), UMRS 975, Paris, France; Inserm, U 975,
Paris, France; CNRS, UMR 7225, Paris, France; Centre de Neuroimagerie de
Recherche CENIR, Groupe Hospitalier Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France.
(4)Inserm, U 975, Paris, France.
(5)Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Centre de Recherche de l’Institut du
Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière (CRICM), UMRS 975, Paris, France; Inserm, U 975,
Paris, France.

Exploring brain connectivity is fundamental to understanding the functional
architecture of the cortex. In our study we employed tractography-based
parcellation, combined with the principal component analysis statistical
framework, to divide the occipital lobes into seven areas in a group of eighteen
healthy participants. Tractography-based parcellation is a method based on
diffusion imaging tractography, which segregates the living human brain into
distinctive areas showing sharp differences in their anatomical connectivity. The
results were compared to covarying functional networks involving distinct areas
within the occipital lobes, that we obtained using resting state functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), as well as to other existing subdivisions of
the occipital lobes. Our results showed similarities with functional imaging data
in healthy controls and cognitive profiles in brain-damaged patients, although
several differences with cytoarchitectonic, myelogenetic, myeloarchitectonic and
functional maps were reported. While the similarities are encouraging, the
potential validity and limitations of the differences observed are discussed.
Taken together these results suggest that tractography-based parcellation
may provide a new promising anatomical subdivision of the living human brain
based on its anatomical connectivity, which may benefit the understanding of
clinical-neuroanatomical dissociations and functional neuroimaging results.

Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2012.12.007
PMID: 23312799 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

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