Rokem Ariel, Takemura Hiromasa, Bock Andrew S, Scherf K Suzanne, Behrmann Marlene, Wandell Brian A, Fine Ione, Bridge Holly, Pestilli Franco
The University of Washington eScience Institute, Seattle, WA,
Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, and Osaka University, Suita-shi, JapanGraduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, Suita-shi,
J Vis. 2017 Feb 1;17(2):4. doi: 10.1167/17.2.4.
Visual neuroscience has traditionally focused much of its attention on understanding the response properties of single neurons or neuronal ensembles. The visual white matter and the long-range neuronal connections it supports are fundamental in establishing such neuronal response properties and visual function. This review article provides an introduction to measurements and methods to study the human visual white matter using diffusion MRI. These methods allow us to measure the microstructural and macrostructural properties of the white matter in living human individuals; they allow us to trace long-range connections between neurons in different parts of the visual system and to measure the biophysical properties of these connections. We also review a range of findings from recent studies on connections between different visual field maps, the effects of visual impairment on the white matter, and the properties underlying networks that process visual information supporting visual face recognition. Finally, we discuss a few promising directions for future studies. These include new methods for analysis of MRI data, open datasets that are becoming available to study brain connectivity and white matter properties, and open source software for the analysis of these data.
传统上，视觉神经科学一直将大量注意力集中在理解单个神经元或神经元集群的反应特性上。视觉白质及其支持的长程神经元连接对于建立此类神经元反应特性和视觉功能至关重要。这篇综述文章介绍了使用扩散磁共振成像（MRI）研究人类视觉白质的测量方法。这些方法使我们能够测量活体人类个体白质的微观结构和宏观结构特性；使我们能够追踪视觉系统不同部位神经元之间的长程连接，并测量这些连接的生物物理特性。我们还综述了近期关于不同视野图之间连接、视觉障碍对白质的影响以及支持视觉面部识别的处理视觉信息网络的特性等研究的一系列发现。最后，我们讨论了未来研究的几个有前景的方向。这些包括MRI数据分析的新方法、用于研究脑连接性和白质特性的可用开放数据集，以及用于分析这些数据的开源软件。
