“Can touch this”: Cross-modal shape categorization performance is associated with microstructural characteristics of white matter association pathways

Abstract

Previous studies on visuo-haptic shape processing provide evidence that visually learned shape information can transfer to the haptic domain. In particular, recent neuroimaging studies have shown that visually learned novel objects that were haptically tested recruited parts of the ventral pathway from early visual cortex to the temporal lobe. Interestingly, in such tasks considerable individual variation in cross-modal transfer performance was observed. Here, we investigate whether this individual variation may be reflected in microstructural characteristics of white-matter (WM) pathways. We first trained participants on a fine-grained categorization task of novel shapes in the visual domain, followed by a haptic categorization test. We then correlated visual training-performance and haptic test-performance, as well as performance on a symbol-coding task requiring visuo-motor dexterity with microstructural properties of WM bundles potentially involved in visuo-haptic processing (the inferior longitudinal fasciculus [ILF], the fronto-temporal part of the superior longitudinal fasciculus [SLF ] and the vertical occipital fasciculus [VOF]). Behavioral results showed that haptic categorization performance was good on average but exhibited large inter-individual variability. Haptic performance also was correlated with performance in the symbol-coding task. WM analyses showed that fast visual learners exhibited higher fractional anisotropy (FA) in left SLF and left VOF. Importantly, haptic test-performance (and symbol-coding performance) correlated with FA in ILF and with axial diffusivity in SLF . These findings provide clear evidence that individual variation in visuo-haptic performance can be linked to microstructural characteristics of WM pathways. Hum Brain Mapp 38:842-854, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Associative white matter connecting the dorsal and ventral posterior human cortex

“…The increased availability of data, software, and methods for modeling and segmenting underreported tracts can serve to advance our understanding of the complex arrangement of brain connections (Hagmann et al 2008;Bullmore and Sporns 2009;Yeh et al 2018) . For example, using modern data and methods a white matter tract between the dorsal and ventral human occipital cortex, the VOF (Yeatman et al 2013;Takemura et al 2016b;Wu et al 2016;Weiner et al 2016;Lee Masson et al 2017) , has recently been "rediscovered". This result, along with contemporary work on the pArc Weiner et al 2016) , have hinted at a more complex white matter architecture in the posterior of the human brain than previously presumed (Hubel and Livingstone 1987;Goodale and Milner 1992;Ungerleider and Haxby 1994;Sakata et al 1997;Milner and Goodale 2008) .…”

“…Regardless, several vertically-oriented associative white matter tracts have been reported recently using in vivo methods, examples of interest for the current article include the vertical occipital fasciculus (VOF; (Yeatman et al 2014;Takemura et al 2016b;Wu et al 2016;Weiner et al 2016;Wandell 2016;Lee Masson et al 2017) ), the posterior arcuate (pArc; Weiner et al 2016) ), the Temporal-Parietal connection to the Superior Parietal Lobule (TP-SPL; Wu et al 2016) ) and the middle longitudinal fasciculus (MdLF, (Makris et al 2009;Menjot de Champfleur et al 2013; ). These tracts connect the dorsal and ventral cortical streams (Ungerleider and Haxby 1994;Milner and Goodale 2008) , with profound implications for the functional architecture of the human connectome (Takemura et al 2016b;Wu et al 2016;Weiner et al 2016;Lee Masson et al 2017) and seem to be conserved in primate species (Takemura et al 2017(Takemura et al , 2018 . Some of these non-canonical tracts that have received renewed attention via in vivo methods have been previously described using post mortem methods ( Figure 2a (Obersteiner 1889;Dejerine and Dejerine-Klumpke 1895;Curran 1909;Gray 1918) ).…”

Associative white matter connecting the dorsal and ventral posterior human cortex

“…Regardless, several vertically-oriented associative white matter tracts have been reported recently using in vivo methods, examples of interest for the current article include the vertical occipital fasciculus (VOF; Takemura et al 2016b;Wu et al 2016;Weiner et al 2016;Wandell 2016; Lee Masson et al 2017) ), the posterior arcuate (pArc; Weiner et al 2016) ), the Temporal-Parietal connection to the Superior Parietal Lobule (TP-SPL; Wu et al 2016) ) and the middle longitudinal fasciculus (MdLF, (Makris et al 2009;Menjot de Champfleur et al 2013; ). These tracts connect the dorsal and ventral cortical streams (Ungerleider and Haxby 1994;Milner and Goodale 2008) , with profound implications for the functional architecture of the human connectome (Takemura et al 2016b;Wu et al 2016;Weiner et al 2016;Lee Masson et al 2017) and seem to be conserved in primate species . Some of these non-canonical tracts that have received renewed attention via in vivo methods have been previously described using post mortem methods ( Figure 2a (Obersteiner 1889;Dejerine and Dejerine-Klumpke 1895;Curran 1909;Gray 1918) ).…”

Tractostorm: The what, why, and how of tractography dissection reproducibility

“…From now on “ dissection plans ” will be referred as segmentation protocols. Bundles can be segmented to study WM morphology, asymmetries, and then can be associated with specific functions (Catani et al, ; Groeschel et al, ; Lee Masson, Wallraven, & Petit, ; Masson, Kang, Petit, & Wallraven, ) with approaches similar to other brain structures (Lister & Barnes, ; Reitz et al, ). Despite having similar anatomical definitions across publications, the absence of common segmentation protocols for tractography leads to differences that are for the most part unknown and unaccounted for.…”

“…From now on "dissection plans" will be referred as segmentation protocols. Bundles can be segmented to study WM morphology, asymmetries, and then can be associated with specific functions (Catani et al, 2007;Groeschel et al, 2014;Lee Masson, Wallraven, & Petit, 2017;Masson, Kang, Petit, & Wallraven, 2018) with approaches similar to other brain structures (Lister & Barnes, 2009;Reitz et al, 2009).…”