Charyasz Edyta, Erb Michael, Bause Jonas, Heule Rahel, Bender Benjamin, Jangir Vinod Kumar, Grodd Wolfgang, Scheffler Klaus
Department for High Field Magnetic Resonance, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany.
Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience, International Max Planck Research School, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Front Neurosci. 2025 May 13;19:1568222. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1568222. eCollection 2025.
The thalamus is the brain's central communication hub, playing a key role in processing and relaying sensorimotor and cognitive information between the cerebral cortex and other brain regions. It consists of specific and non-specific nuclei, each with a different role. Specific thalamic nuclei relay sensory and motor information to specific cortical and subcortical regions to ensure precise communication. In contrast, non-specific thalamic nuclei are involved in general functions such as attention or consciousness through broader and less targeted connections. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the functional connectivity patterns of the thalamic nuclei identified in our previous study as being involved in motor (finger-tapping) and sensory (finger-touch) tasks. The results of this study show that thalamic nuclei are not static hubs with a predefined role in neural signal processing, as they show different task-specific functional connectivity patterns in the anterior, middle, lateral, and posterior thalamic nuclei. Instead, they are all functional hubs that can flexibly change their connections to other brain regions in response to task demands. This work has important implications for understanding task-dependent functional connectivity between thalamic nuclei and different brain regions using task-based fMRI at 9.4 Tesla.
丘脑是大脑的中央通信枢纽，在处理和传递大脑皮层与其他脑区之间的感觉运动及认知信息方面发挥着关键作用。它由特定核团和非特定核团组成，每个核团都有不同的作用。特定丘脑核团将感觉和运动信息传递至特定的皮层及皮层下区域，以确保精确的通信。相比之下，非特定丘脑核团则通过更广泛且针对性较弱的连接参与诸如注意力或意识等一般功能。在本研究中，我们旨在探究在我们之前的研究中确定的参与运动（手指敲击）和感觉（手指触摸）任务的丘脑核团的功能连接模式。这项研究的结果表明，丘脑核团并非在神经信号处理中具有预定义作用的静态枢纽，因为它们在前丘脑、中丘脑、外侧丘脑和后丘脑核团中显示出不同的任务特异性功能连接模式。相反，它们都是功能性枢纽，能够根据任务需求灵活改变与其他脑区的连接。这项工作对于使用9.4特斯拉基于任务的功能磁共振成像来理解丘脑核团与不同脑区之间任务依赖的功能连接具有重要意义。
