Stereotaxic Localization, Intersubject Variability, and Interhemispheric Differences of the Human Auditory Thalamocortical System

doi:10.1006/nimg.2002.1178

NeuroImage

Volume 17, Issue 1, September 2002, Pages 142-160

https://doi.org/10.1006/nimg.2002.1178 Get rights and content

Abstract

Population (probability) maps of cytoarchitectonically defined cortical maps and myeloarchitectonically defined subcortical fiber tracts of the human brain became recently available. These maps can be used for the precise anatomical localization of activated foci as found in functional imaging studies. The aim of this study is to evaluate population maps of the human acoustic radiation (AR) for the purpose of brain mapping studies. Thus, a stereotaxic 3-D representation of the human AR was computed which includes myeloarchitectonic probabilistic maps of AR and its thalamic origin, i.e. the cytoarchitectonically defined medial geniculate nucleus (MGN). These maps were compared with earlier, mostly schematic drawings of AR and MGN. To generate these maps, the degree of intersubject variability of AR and MGN in each stereotaxic position was quantified for the standard axes (x, y, and z) of the reference space in a series of 10 adult human postmortem brains. The results show that the location and volumes of AR and MGN vary considerably between individuals and hemispheres. It is demonstrated that this striking degree of spatial variations may lead to structural–functional mismatch in brain mapping studies based on the Talairach atlas (discrepancy maps). Furthermore, the volumetric measures showed no hemispheric asymmetry for AR and MGN. In contrast to earlier maps, our approach provides microanatomically defined data as a probabilistic reference system for research in auditory structure–function relationships.

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However, imaging studies have also implicated the thalamus in hallucinating states (Shergill et al., 2000). As discussed in Llano (2013), it is important to point out that failure to see thalamic activation during a functional imaging study may be related to multiple factors: failure to examine thalamic regions of interest, the small size of thalamic nuclei relative to voxel size in functional imaging studies, the high variability of thalamic nuclear borders across subjects (Andrew and Watkins, 1969; Rademacher et al., 2002; Uylings et al., 2008) as well as the greater vulnerablity to movement artifacts induced by cardiac contractions than that observed in the cortex (Guimaraes et al., 1998). In addition, the thalamus shows different metabolic time profiles compared to neocortex (Llano et al., 2009), suggesting that thalamus-specific hemodynamic response functions may be needed.
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Regular ArticleStereotaxic Localization, Intersubject Variability, and Interhemispheric Differences of the Human Auditory Thalamocortical System

Abstract

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Neuron

Trends Neurosci.

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J. Neurosci. Methods

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Brain Res.

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Neuroimage

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Brain Res. Rev.

Brain Res. Dev.

Brain Res. Rev.

NeuroImage

Effects of aging on the size, density, and number of rhesus monkey lateral geniculate neurons

J. Comp. Neurol.

Broca's region revisited: Cytoarchitecture and intersubject variability

J. Comp. Neurol.

Normal and diseased acoustic pathway: Evaluation with MR imaging

Radiology

The ontogeny of human gyrification

Cereb. Cortex

Normal maturation of the neonatal and infant brain: MR imaging at 1.5 T

Radiology

In vivo fiber tractography using DT-MRI data

Magn. Reson. Med.

Vergleichende Lokalisationslehre der Grosshirnrinde

Feinere Anatomie des Groβhirns

Histological visualization of long fiber tracts in the white matter of adult human brains

J. Brain Res.

Kartierung langer Faserbahnen im adulten menschlichen Gehirn. Geschlechtsunterschiede, Lateralisation und Variabilität. Ein Beitrag zur “European Computerized Human Brain Database (ECHBD)”

Dissertation

Functional organization of auditory cortex in the Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus). IV. Connections with anatomically characterized subcortical structures

Eur. J. Neurosci.

Tracking neuronal fiber pathways in the living human brain

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA

Backwardness of human neuroanatomy

Nature

MR imaging of compact white matter pathways

AJNR Am. J. Neuroradiol.

Comparing thalamocortical and corticothalamic microstructure and spatial reciprocity in the macaque ventral posterolateral nucleus (VPLc) and medial pulvinar

J. Comp. Neurol.

Anatomie des Centres Nerveux

Contribution of thalamic input to the specification of cytoarchitectonic cortical fields in the primate: Effects of bilateral enucleation in the fetal monkey on the boundaries, dimensions, and gyrification of striate and extrastriate cortex

J. Comp. Neurol.

Intraoperative mapping of the subcortical language pathways using direct stimulations. An anatomo-functional study

Brain

Improved auditory cortex imaging using clustered volume acquisitions

Hum. Brain Mapp.

Symmetry and asymmetry in the human posterior thalamus. I. Cytoarchitectonic analysis in normal persons

Arch. Neurol.

Cortically induced thalamic plasticity in the primate somatosensory system

Nat. Neurosci.

Experiments on the brain of monkeys

Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. B

Die Leitungsbahnen im Gehirn und Rückenmark des Menschen aufgrund entwicklungsgeschichtlicher Untersuchungen

Bemerkungen über die Hörsphäre des menschlichen Gehirns

Neurol. Centralbl.

Anatomie des menschlichen Gehirns und Rückenmarks auf myelogenetischer Grundlage

Auditory illusions caused by a small lesion in the right medial geniculate body

Neurology

Cytoarchitectonic organization of the human auditory cortex

J. Comp. Neurol.

Evidence for aberrant auditory anatomy in developmental dyslexia

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA

Regular Article
Stereotaxic Localization, Intersubject Variability, and Interhemispheric Differences of the Human Auditory Thalamocortical System