Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2011;6(12):e28716. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0028716. Epub 2011 Dec 7.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at high magnetic fields has made it possible to investigate the columnar organization of the human brain in vivo with high degrees of accuracy and sensitivity. Until now, these results have been limited to the organization principles of early visual cortex (V1). While the middle temporal area (MT) has been the first identified extra-striate visual area shown to exhibit a columnar organization in monkeys, evidence of MT's columnar response properties and topographic layout in humans has remained elusive. Research using various approaches suggests similar response properties as in monkeys but failed to provide direct evidence for direction or axis of motion selectivity in human area MT. By combining state of the art pulse sequence design, high spatial resolution in all three dimensions (0.8 mm isotropic), optimized coil design, ultrahigh field magnets (7 Tesla) and novel high resolution cortical grid sampling analysis tools, we provide the first direct evidence for large-scale axis of motion selective feature organization in human area MT closely matching predictions from topographic columnar-level simulations.
功能磁共振成像（fMRI）在高磁场下使得研究人类大脑的柱形组织成为可能，其具有高度的准确性和敏感性。到目前为止，这些结果仅限于早期视觉皮层（V1）的组织原则。虽然颞中区（MT）是第一个被确定的具有柱形组织的外侧视觉区，但在人类中，MT 的柱形反应特性和地形布局仍然难以捉摸。使用各种方法的研究表明，其具有与猴子相似的反应特性，但未能提供人类 MT 区在运动方向或轴向上具有选择性的直接证据。通过结合最先进的脉冲序列设计、所有三个维度的高空间分辨率（0.8 毫米各向同性）、优化的线圈设计、超高磁场磁体（7 特斯拉）和新颖的高分辨率皮质网格采样分析工具，我们提供了第一个直接证据，证明了人类 MT 区的运动轴选择性特征组织与地形柱状水平模拟的预测非常匹配。
