The ventral pathway of the human brain: A continuous association tract system

作者：Cornelius Weiller, Marco Reisert, Ivo Peto, Jürgen Hennig, Nikos Makris, Michael Petrides, Michel Rijntjes, Karl Egger · 发表于：NeuroImage · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117977 · 被引用次数：63 · 研究领域：Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications、Functional Brain Connectivity Studies、Fetal and Pediatric Neurological Disorders

The brain hemispheres can be divided into an upper dorsal and a lower ventral system. Each system consists of distinct cortical regions connected via long association tracts. The tracts cross the central sulcus or the limen insulae to connect the frontal lobe with the posterior brain. The dorsal stream is associated with sensorimotor mapping. The ventral stream serves structural analysis and semantics in different domains, as visual, acoustic or space processing. How does the prefrontal cortex, regarded as the platform for the highest level of integration, incorporate information from these different domains? In the current view, the ventral pathway consists of several separate tracts, related to different modalities. Originally the assumption was that the ventral path is a continuum, covering all modalities. The latter would imply a very different anatomical basis for cognitive and clinical models of processing. To further define the ventral connections, we used cutting-edge in vivo global tractography on high-resolution diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data from 100 normal subjects from the human connectome project and ex vivo preparation of fiber bundles in the extreme capsule of 8 humans using the Klingler technique. Our data showed that ventral stream tracts, traversing through the extreme capsule, form a continuous band of fibers that fan out anteriorly to the prefrontal cortex, and posteriorly to temporal, occipital and parietal cortical regions. Introduction of addition...