Mapping multiple principles of parietal–frontal cortical organization using functional connectivity

Abstract

Resting state functional connectivity has been promoted as a promising tool for creating cortical maps that show remarkable similarity to those established by invasive histological methods. While this tool has been largely used to identify and map cortical areas, its true potential in the context of studying connectional architecture and in conducting comparative neuroscience has remained unexplored. Here, we employ widely used resting state connectivity and data-driven clustering methods to extend this approach for the study of the organizational principles of the macaque parietal–frontal system. We show multiple, overlapping principles of organization, including a dissociation between dorsomedial and dorsolateral pathways and separate parietal–premotor and parietal–frontal pathways. These results demonstrate the suitability of this approach for understanding the complex organizational principles of the brain and for large-scale comparative neuroscience.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00429-018-1791-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Functional organization of frontoparietal cortex in the marmoset investigated with awake resting-state fMRI

“…The anterior and middle parts of PPC was connected to premotor area, whereas the posterior and medial parts of PPC were relatively connected to caudal prefrontal areas (6DR and 8a). These overarching patterns of inter-areal organization are consistent with a recent macaque study using RS-fMRI and a hierarchical clustering technique (Vijayakumar et al 2019). Macaque anterior parietal lobe areas (PF, PG) and AIP are functionally connected to the ventral premotor area, whereas the posterior parietal lobe (OPt) and IPS (AIP, VIP, PEa) are connected to the caudal dorsolateral cortex.…”

“…Recently, Vijayakumar and colleagues used a resting-state fMRI (RS-fMRI) connectivity and data-driven hierarchical clustering method to study the organizational principles of the macaque frontoparietal system (Vijayakumar et al 2019). RS-fMRI is task independent, it thus does not require task matching across species and extensive training.…”

Concurrent analysis of white matter bundles and grey matter networks in the chimpanzee

“…It was noticeable that we did not observe strong parietal–frontal components, even though it is known that these systems are interconnected through a series of parallel pathways (Caminiti et al 2017 ; Vijayakumar et al 2018 ). A series of longitudinal white matter pathways are thought underlie many of these connections, with most authors distinguishing three branches of the superior longitudinal fascicle (SLF) as well as the arcuate fascicle (AF) (e.g., Makris et al 2005 ; Schmahmann and Pandya 2006 ; Thiebaut De Schotten et al 2011 ).…”

Corticocortical Systems Underlying High-Order Motor Control

“…The connections between the areas of posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and frontal cortex (FC) involved in motor control in monkeys have been determined through anatomical tracing studies (Caminiti et al, 2017). These have inspired physiological investigations and now form a large dataset essential to validate empirical results obtained using MRI-based diffusion tract-tracing and resting-state connectivity (Rushworth et al, 2006;Mars et al, 2011Mars et al, , 2018Goulas et al, 2012;Sallet et al, 2013;Neubert et al, 2014;Ruschel et al, 2014;Vijayakumar et al, 2019), which are essential tools for the analysis of human brain networks (Van Essen, 2002;Sporns, 2012;Markov et al, 2013;Van Essen et al, 2013). We start by illustrating the mesoscale organization of parietofrontal connections involved in executive functions and motor control and later discuss the functional operations performed by their parent areas.…”