Overlooked tertiary sulci serve as a meso-scale link between microstructural and functional properties of human lateral prefrontal cortex

Miller, Jacob A.; Voorhies, Willa I.; Lurie, Daniel J.; D’Esposito, Mark; Weiner, Kevin S.

doi:10.1101/2020.03.24.006577

Cited by 6 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 72 publications

(42 reference statements)

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“…Although the activation peaks for the ventral larynx representation are not directly located in the subcentral opercular area, the more detailed anatomical information in this region is still helpful for the alignment. Our study emphasizes the importance of detailed anatomical investigations of sulcal segments and tertiary sulci in understanding the structure-to-function relationships in the cortex (Weiner et al 2018;Miller et al 2020).…”

Section: Relationship Between Variability In Structure and Functionmentioning

confidence: 53%

Morphological and functional variability in central and subcentral motor cortex of the human brain

Eichert

Watkins

Mars

et al. 2020

Preprint

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There is a long-established link between anatomy and function in the somatomotor system in the mammalian cerebral cortex. Morphology of the central sulcus predicts the location of functional activation peaks in individuals, but morphological variation in the subcentral region and its relationship to functional activation is unknown. Investigating the subcentral region is particularly important in the context of speech, since control of the larynx during human speech production activates this region. Here, we examined whether morphological variation in the central and subcentral region is related to functional activation during movement of the hand, lips, tongue, and larynx at the individual subject level. We provide a systematic description of the sulcal pattern of the subcentral and adjacent opercular cortex, including the inter-individual variability of sulcal morphology. We found a robust relationship between morphology of the central and subcentral sulcal segments and movement of different effectors. A surface registration based on sulci revealed that anatomical variability explains, in part, spatial variability in function.Significance StatementThere is a long established relationship between structure and function in the somatomotor system in the mammalian brain. Here, we show that the location of brain activations during movement involving different effectors relates to morphological landmarks in the central sulcus and the subcentral region of the cerebral cortex. We provide a systematic description of the morphological patterns of the subcentral cortical region and the inter-individual anatomical variability of sulcal segments. We discuss how structural variability can explain spatial variability in functional activations, which is a critical factor for cross-subject registrations in group studies.

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Section: Relationship Between Variability In Structure and Functionmentioning

confidence: 53%

Morphological and functional variability in central and subcentral motor cortex of the human brain

Eichert

Watkins

Mars

et al. 2020

Preprint

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show abstract

“…As depth is the key morphological feature differentiating tertiary from primary and secondary sulci [16][17][18][19] , and recent findings show that LPFC tertiary sulci are shallower and more variable than primary/secondary sulci in adults 37 , we next sought to compare the depth and variability of tertiary and primary/secondary sulci in children. Sulcal depth was normalized to the maximum depth value within each individual hemisphere in order to account for differences in brain size across individuals and hemispheres (Online Methods).…”

Section: Lpfc Tertiary Sulci Are Shallower and More Variable Than Primentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We chose to focus on relational reasoning, which is the ability to extract common features across objects and conceptualize them in terms of their relation to each other 6,7 , because humans consistently outperform other species in relational reasoning tasks 6,8 , and developmental improvements in this domain are strongly associated with anatomical changes in LPFC 7,9,10 . We chose to focus on tertiary sulci, which are the shallowest class of cortical folds, because they have been largely overlooked due to methodological difficulties in their identification (which we expand on further below) [11][12][13] . Due to these difficulties, very little is known regarding the role of tertiary sulci in human cognition despite the fact that many tertiary sulci are evolutionarily new structures that are uniquely human 14 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This gap likely persists for three key reasons. First, previous studies examining individual differences in the development of reasoning and anatomical variability in human LPFC 7 implemented analyses that were averaged across individuals on standard neuroanatomical templates, which obscure tertiary sulci in LPFC 13 ( Supplementary Fig. 2).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To characterize this relationship, we developed a novel pipeline that combines the most recent anatomical definition of LPFC tertiary sulci 14 with data-driven analyses to model sulcal morphological features and reasoning performance. Our approach addresses four main questions: 1) Are LPFC tertiary sulci identifiable in a developmental sample, and are they smaller and shallower than primary and secondary LPFC sulci as in adults 13,14 ? 2) Is there a relationship between the depth of LPFC tertiary sulci and reasoning performance across individuals?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cognitive insights from evolutionarily new brain structures in prefrontal cortex

Voorhies

Miller

Yao

et al. 2020

Preprint

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While the disproportionate expansion of lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) throughout evolution is commonly accepted, the relationship between evolutionarily new LPFC brain structures and uniquely human cognitive skills is largely unknown. Here, we tested the relationship between variability in evolutionarily new LPFC tertiary sulci and reasoning skills in a pediatric cohort. A novel data-driven approach in independent discovery and replication samples revealed that the depth of specific LPFC tertiary sulci predicts individual differences in reasoning skills beyond age. These findings support a classic, yet untested, theory linking the protracted development of tertiary sulci to late-developing cognitive processes. We conclude by proposing a mechanistic hypothesis relating the depth of LPFC tertiary sulci to anatomical connections. We suggest that deeper LPFC tertiary sulci reflect reduced short-range connections in white matter, which in turn, improve the efficiency of local neural signals underlying cognitive skills such as reasoning that are central to human cognitive development.

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Morphological and functional variability in central and subcentral motor cortex of the human brain

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is a long-established link between anatomy and function in the somatomotor system in the mammalian cerebral cortex. The morphology of the central sulcus is predictive of the location of functional activation peaks relating to movement of different effectors in individuals. By contrast, morphological variation in the subcentral region and its relationship to function is, as yet, unknown. Investigating the subcentral region is particularly important in the context of speech, since control of the larynx during human speech production is related to activity in this region. Here, we examined the relationship between morphology in the central and subcentral region and the location of functional activity during movement of the hand, lips, tongue, and larynx at the individual participant level. We provide a systematic description of the sulcal patterns of the subcentral and adjacent opercular cortex, including the inter-individual variability in sulcal morphology. We show that, in the majority of participants, the anterior subcentral sulcus is not continuous, but consists of two distinct segments. A robust relationship between morphology of the central and subcentral sulcal segments and movement of different effectors is demonstrated. Inter-individual variability of underlying anatomy might thus explain previous inconsistent findings, in particular regarding the ventral larynx area in subcentral cortex. A surface registration based on sulcal labels indicated that such anatomical information can improve the alignment of functional data for group studies.

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Overlooked tertiary sulci serve as a meso-scale link between microstructural and functional properties of human lateral prefrontal cortex

Cited by 6 publications

References 72 publications

Morphological and functional variability in central and subcentral motor cortex of the human brain

Morphological and functional variability in central and subcentral motor cortex of the human brain

Cognitive insights from evolutionarily new brain structures in prefrontal cortex

Morphological and functional variability in central and subcentral motor cortex of the human brain

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