Abivardi Aslan, Bach Dominik R
Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Psychiatric Hospital, University of Zurich, Zurich, 8032, Switzerland.
Division of Clinical Psychiatry Research, Psychiatric Hospital, University of Zurich, Zurich, 8032, Switzerland.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2017 Aug;38(8):3927-3940. doi: 10.1002/hbm.23639. Epub 2017 May 17.
Structural alterations in long-range amygdala connections are proposed to crucially underlie several neuropsychiatric disorders. While progress has been made in elucidating the function of these connections, our understanding of their structure in humans remains sparse and non-systematic. Harnessing diffusion-weighted imaging and probabilistic tractography in humans, we investigate connections between two main amygdala nucleus groups, thalamic nuclei, and cortex. We first parcellated amygdala into deep (basolateral) and superficial (centrocortical) nucleus groups, and thalamus into six subregions, using previously established protocols based on connectivity. Cortex was parcellated based on T1-weighted images. We found substantial amygdala connections to thalamus, with different patterns for the two amygdala nuclei. Crucially, we describe direct subcortical connections between amygdala and paraventricular thalamus. Different from rodents but similar to non-human primates, these are more pronounced for basolateral than centrocortical amygdala. Substantial white-matter connectivity between amygdala and visual pulvinar is also more pronounced for basolateral amygdala. Furthermore, we establish detailed connectivity profiles for basolateral and centrocortical amygdala to cortical regions. These exhibit cascadic connections with sensory cortices as suggested previously based on tracer methods in non-human animals. We propose that the quantitative connectivity profiles provided here may guide future work on normal and pathological function of human amygdala. Hum Brain Mapp 38:3927-3940, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
远程杏仁核连接的结构改变被认为是几种神经精神疾病的关键基础。虽然在阐明这些连接的功能方面已经取得了进展，但我们对其在人类中的结构的理解仍然稀少且不系统。利用人类的扩散加权成像和概率性纤维束成像，我们研究了两个主要杏仁核核团、丘脑核团和皮质之间的连接。我们首先使用基于连接性的先前建立的方案，将杏仁核划分为深部（基底外侧）和浅部（中央皮质）核团，并将丘脑划分为六个亚区域。根据T1加权图像对皮质进行划分。我们发现杏仁核与丘脑有大量连接，两个杏仁核核团的连接模式不同。至关重要的是，我们描述了杏仁核与室旁丘脑之间的直接皮质下连接。与啮齿动物不同但与非人灵长类动物相似，这些连接在基底外侧杏仁核比中央皮质杏仁核更明显。杏仁核与视觉丘脑枕之间的大量白质连接在基底外侧杏仁核也更明显。此外，我们建立了基底外侧和中央皮质杏仁核与皮质区域的详细连接图谱。这些图谱显示出如先前基于非人动物示踪方法所建议的与感觉皮质的级联连接。我们认为这里提供的定量连接图谱可能会指导未来关于人类杏仁核正常和病理功能的研究。《人类大脑图谱》38:3927 - 3940，2017年。© 2017威利期刊公司。
