Frontoparietal Structural Connectivity Mediates the Top-Down Control of Neuronal Synchronization Associated with Selective Attention

PLoS Biol. 2015 Oct 6;13(10):e1002272. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002272. eCollection 2015 Oct.

Abstract

Neuronal synchronization reflected by oscillatory brain activity has been strongly implicated in the mechanisms supporting selective gating. We here aimed at identifying the anatomical pathways in humans supporting the top-down control of neuronal synchronization. We first collected diffusion imaging data using magnetic resonance imaging to identify the medial branch of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), a white-matter tract connecting frontal control areas to parietal regions. We then quantified the modulations in oscillatory activity using magnetoencephalography in the same subjects performing a spatial attention task. We found that subjects with a stronger SLF volume in the right compared to the left hemisphere (or vice versa) also were the subjects who had a better ability to modulate right compared to left hemisphere alpha and gamma band synchronization, with the latter also predicting biases in reaction time. Our findings implicate the medial branch of the SLF in mediating top-down control of neuronal synchronization in sensory regions that support selective attention.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Algorithms
  • Attention*
  • Brain Mapping
  • Cortical Synchronization*
  • Cues
  • Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Female
  • Frontal Lobe / anatomy & histology
  • Frontal Lobe / physiology*
  • Functional Laterality*
  • Humans
  • Magnetoencephalography
  • Male
  • Neurons / physiology*
  • Occipital Lobe / anatomy & histology
  • Occipital Lobe / physiology*
  • Parietal Lobe / anatomy & histology
  • Parietal Lobe / physiology*
  • Reaction Time
  • Spatial Processing
  • Task Performance and Analysis
  • Young Adult

Associated data

  • Dryad/10.5061/dryad.BT7V0

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the BrainGain Smart Mix Programme of the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs, a NWO-MaGW VICI Grant (453-09-002), and a NWO-ALW Open competition Grant (822-02-011) from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO, www.nwo.nl). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.