Department of Functional Anatomy, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba, 260-8670, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2023 Feb 2;13(1):1936. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-29251-2.
It is generally hypothesized that functional connectivity (FC) reflects the underlying structural connectivity (SC). The precuneus is associated with highly integrated cognitive functions. However, our understanding of the structural connections that could underlie them is limited. This study aimed to characterize the cortico-cortical connections by probabilistic tractography. The precuneus corresponds to the five cortical areas (7Am, PCV, 7Pm, 7m, POS2) on the HCP MMP atlas. We first conducted the atlas-based probabilistic tractography. The anterior part (7Am) was strongly connected to the sensorimotor region. The dorsal part (7Am, 7Pm) was highly connected with the adjacent parietal and temporal cortex, while the ventral part (PCV, 7m) showed strong connections with the adjacent posterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex. The most posterior part (POS2) was explicitly connected to the visual cortex. In addition, there was a correlation between SC and resting-state fMRI connectivity (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient = 0.322 ± 0.019, p < 0.05 corrected at subject level). Collectively, the current study revealed the characteristic connectional profile of precuneus, which could shed light on the structural heterogeneity for the future functional analyses.
人们普遍假设功能连接（FC）反映了潜在的结构连接（SC）。楔前叶与高度综合的认知功能有关。然而，我们对其潜在结构连接的理解是有限的。本研究旨在通过概率追踪描绘皮质-皮质连接。楔前叶对应于 HCP MMP 图谱上的五个皮质区域（7Am、PCV、7Pm、7m、POS2）。我们首先进行了基于图谱的概率追踪。前部分（7Am）与感觉运动区强烈连接。背侧部分（7Am、7Pm）与相邻的顶叶和颞叶皮质高度连接，而腹侧部分（PCV、7m）与相邻的后扣带和内侧前额叶皮质有强烈的连接。最靠后的部分（POS2）与视觉皮层明确相连。此外，SC 与静息状态 fMRI 连接之间存在相关性（Spearman 等级相关系数=0.322±0.019，p<0.05，在受试者水平上校正）。总的来说，本研究揭示了楔前叶的特征连接模式，这可能为未来的功能分析提供结构异质性的启示。
