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Sub-bundle based analysis reveals the role of human optic radiation in visual working memory
Yanming Wang1, Huan Wang2, Sheng Hu1
1Medical Imaging Center, Department of Electronic Engineering and Information Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
Human Brain Mapping
|August 2, 2024
Summary
This study reveals that sub-bundles of the optic radiation (OR) show distinct functional activity, supporting visual working memory. Analyzing white matter (WM) at this detailed level enhances our understanding of visual processing.
Area of Science:
- Neuroimaging
- Human Connectome Project
- Visual Neuroscience
Background:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) reliably detects white matter (WM) activity.
- Previous studies treated WM bundles as single units, missing functional variations within them.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the function of sub-bundles within the optic radiation (OR), a key visual WM tract.
- To assess the retinotopic properties and working memory activations of OR sub-bundles.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the 7T Human Connectome Project (HCP) retinotopy dataset to reconstruct and subdivide the OR.
- Applied population receptive field (pRF) modeling to evaluate retinotopic properties.
- Analyzed fMRI data from HCP working memory tasks (0-back and 2-back) for OR sub-bundles, LGN, and V1.
Main Results:
- OR sub-bundles demonstrated standard retinotopic properties, consistent with V1 subfields.
- 2-back task activations significantly exceeded 0-back across OR sub-bundles, LGN, and V1.
- Foveal V1 showed higher task contrast than peripheral V1; OR sub-bundles correlated with working memory performance.
Conclusions:
- BOLD signals in OR sub-bundles encode high-fidelity visual information, validating sub-bundle level analysis.
- The OR plays a role in both bottom-up visual transmission and top-down visual working memory.
- This study introduces a novel paradigm for analyzing WM tracts at the sub-bundle level, advancing OR function understanding.
Keywords:
blood oxygen level‐dependent (BOLD)optic radiation (OR)population receptive field (pRF)white matterworking memoryMore Related Videos
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