From histology to macroscale function in the human amygdala

• DOI: 10.7554/elife.101950.2
• Publication Date: 2025-01-31T16:25:39Z
• Authors: Hans Auer; Donna Gift Cabalo; Raul Rodriguez-Cr...; Oualid Benkarim; Casey Paquola; Jordan DeKraker; Yezhou Wang; Sofie Valk; Boris C Bernhardt; Jessica Royer
• Keywords: Human brain; Spatial normalization

The amygdala is a subcortical region in the mesiotemporal lobe that plays key role emotional and sensory functions. Conventional neuroimaging experiments treat this structure as single, uniform entity, but there ample histological evidence for subregional heterogeneity microstructure function. current study characterized structure-function coupling human amygdala, integrating post mortem histology vivo MRI at ultrahigh fields. Core to our work was novel neuroinformatics approach leveraged multiscale texture analysis well non-linear dimensionality reduction techniques identify salient dimensions of microstructural variation 3D reconstruction amygdala. We observed two axes region, describing inferior-superior medio-lateral trends differentiation part recapitulated established atlases subnuclei. Translating data acquired 7 Tesla, we could demonstrate generalizability these spatial across 10 healthy adults. then cross-referenced with functional blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal obtained during task-free conditions, revealed close association structural macroscale network embedding, notably temporo-limbic, default mode, sensory-motor networks. Our consolidates descriptions anatomy function from imaging techniques.