Department of Neurology, Freiburg Brain Imaging, University Medical Center Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
Cereb Cortex. 2010 Jan;20(1):121-9. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhp086.
In the present study, we identified the most probable trajectories of point-to-point segregated connections between functional attentional centers using a combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging and a novel diffusion tensor imaging-based algorithm for pathway extraction. Cortical regions activated by a visuospatial attention task were subsequently used as seeds for probabilistic fiber tracking in 26 healthy subjects. Combining probability maps of frontal and temporoparietal regions yielded a network that consisted of dorsal and ventral connections. The dorsal connections linked temporoparietal cortex with the frontal eye field and area 44 of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Traveling along superior longitudinal and arcuate fascicles, these fibers are well described in relation to spatial attention. However, the ventral connections, which traveled in the white matter between insula (INS) cortex and putamen parallel to the sylvian fissure, were not previously described for visuospatial attention. Linking temporoparietal cortex with anterior INS and area 45 of IFG, these connections may provide an anatomical substrate for crossmodal cortical integration needed for stimulus perception and response in relation to current intention. The newly anatomically described integral network for visuospatial attention might improve the understanding of spatial attention deficits after white matter lesions.
在本研究中，我们使用功能磁共振成像和一种新的基于扩散张量成像的通路提取算法相结合，确定了功能注意中心之间点对点分离连接的最可能轨迹。随后，我们将视觉空间注意力任务激活的皮质区域用作 26 名健康受试者的概率纤维追踪的种子。将额颞区域的概率图谱结合起来，得到了一个由背侧和腹侧连接组成的网络。背侧连接将颞顶叶皮层与额眼区和下额前回（IFG）的 44 区连接起来。这些纤维沿着上纵束和弓状束行进，与空间注意力有关，描述得很好。然而，腹侧连接沿着与大脑外侧裂平行的岛叶（INS）皮层和壳核之间的白质行进，以前没有描述过与视觉空间注意力有关。这些连接将颞顶叶皮层与前岛叶和 IFG 的 45 区连接起来，为刺激感知和当前意图相关的反应所需的跨模态皮质整合提供了一个解剖学基础。新描述的视觉空间注意力整体网络可能有助于理解白质病变后空间注意力缺陷。
