RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Interindividual Variation in Fornix Microstructure and Macrostructure Is Related to Visual Discrimination Accuracy for Scenes But Not Faces
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 12121
OP 12126
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0026-14.2014
VO 34
IS 36
A1 Mark Postans
A1 Carl J. Hodgetts
A1 Matthew E. Mundy
A1 Derek K. Jones
A1 Andrew D. Lawrence
A1 Kim S. Graham
YR 2014
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/36/12121.abstract
AB Transection of the nonhuman primate fornix has been shown to impair learning of configurations of spatial features and object-in-scene memory. Although damage to the human fornix also results in memory impairment, it is not known whether there is a preferential involvement of this white-matter tract in spatial learning, as implied by animal studies. Diffusion-weighted MR images were obtained from healthy participants who had completed versions of a task in which they made rapid same/different discriminations to two categories of highly visually similar stimuli: (1) virtual reality scene pairs; and (2) face pairs. Diffusion-MRI measures of white-matter microstructure [fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD)] and macrostructure (tissue volume fraction, f) were then extracted from the fornix of each participant, which had been reconstructed using a deterministic tractography protocol. Fornix MD and f measures correlated with scene, but not face, discrimination accuracy in both discrimination tasks. A complementary voxelwise analysis using tract-based spatial statistics suggested the crus of the fornix as a focus for this relationship. These findings extend previous reports of spatial learning impairments after fornix transection in nonhuman primates, critically highlighting the fornix as a source of interindividual variation in scene discrimination in humans.