The spatial extent of anatomical connections within the thalamus varies across the cortical hierarchy in humans and macaques

• DOI: 10.7554/elife.95018.1
• Publication Date: 2024-02-29T15:25:41Z
• Authors: Amber M. Howell; Shaun Warrington; Clara Fonteneau; Youngsun T. Cho; Stamatios N. Soti...; John D. Murray; Alan Anticevic
• Keywords: Human Connectome Project; Human brain

Each cortical area has a distinct pattern of anatomical connections within the thalamus, central subcortical structure composed functionally and structurally nuclei. Previous studies have suggested that certain areas may more extensive target multiple thalamic nuclei, which potentially allows them to modulate distributed information flow. However, there is lack quantitative investigations into connectivity patterns thalamus. Consequently, it remains unknown if exhibit systematic differences in extent their To address this knowledge gap, we used diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) perform brain-wide probabilistic tractography for 828 healthy adults from Human Connectome Project. We then developed framework quantify spatial each area’s Additionally, leveraged resting-state functional MRI, myelin, human neural gene expression data test thalamus varied along hierarchy. Our results revealed two cortico-thalamic motifs: 1) sensorimotor motif characterized by focal targeting posterolateral associated with fast, feed-forward flow; 2) an associative diffuse anteromedial slow, feed-back These findings were consistent across subjects also observed macaques, indicating cross-species generalizability. Overall, our study demonstrates association support functionally-distinct