Disentangling structure-function relationships between the human hippocampus and the whole brain using track-weighted...

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Connectomics

Background:

• Understanding hippocampal connectivity is key to cognitive function.
• The hippocampus interacts with widespread brain regions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between direct anatomical connections and time-varying functional interactions of the human hippocampus.
• To develop an anatomically informed functional parcellation of the hippocampus.

Main Methods:

• Combined high-resolution diffusion MRI and a novel fiber-tracking pipeline.
• Utilized track-weighted dynamic functional connectivity (TW-dFC) analysis.
• Employed Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and k-means clustering for hippocampal parcellation.

Main Results:

• Identified distinct hippocampal clusters based on structure-function relationships, aligning with subfields.
• Each cluster showed unique functional connectivity patterns with cortical, subcortical, and cerebellar regions.
• TW-dFC enabled an anatomically informed functional parcellation of the hippocampus.

Conclusions:

• TW-dFC is a powerful framework for functional parcellation of the hippocampus.
• Provides new insights into hippocampal-(sub)cortical interactions.
• Opens avenues for studying memory systems in health, aging, and disease.