Fine-scale functional connectivity in somatosensory cortex revealed by high-resolution fMRI

High-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at high field (9.4 T) has been used to measure functional connectivity between subregions within the primary somatosensory (SI) cortex of the squirrel monkey brain. The hand-face region within the SI cortex of the squirrel monkey has been previously well mapped with functional imaging and electrophysiological and anatomical methods, and the orderly topographic map of the hand region is characterized by a lateral to medial representation of individual digits in four subregions of areas 3a, 3b, 1 and 2. With submillimeter resolution, we are able to detect not only the separate islands of activation corresponding to vibrotactile stimulations of single digits but also, in subsequent acquisitions, the degree of correlation between voxels within the SI cortex in the resting state. The results suggest that connectivity patterns are very similar to stimulus-driven distributions of activity and that connectivity varies on the scale of millimeters within the same primary region. Connectivity strength is not a reflection of global larger-scale changes in blood flow and is not directly dependent on distance between regions. Preliminary electrophysiological recordings agree well with the fMRI data. In human studies at 7 T, high-resolution fMRI may also be used to identify the same subregions and assess responses to sensory as well as painful stimuli, and to measure connectivity dynamically before and after such stimulations.