Diffusion MRI properties of the human uncinate fasciculus correlate with the ability to learn visual associations.
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The uncinate fasciculus (UF) is a cortico-cortico white matter pathway that links the anterior temporal and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). In the monkey, transection of the UF causes significant impairments in learning conditional visual-visual associations, while object discrimination remains intact, suggesting an important role for the UF in mediating the learning of complex visual associations. Whether this functional role extends to the human UF has not been tested directly. Here, we used diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) and behavioral experiments to examine the relation between learning visual associations and the structural properties of the human UF. In a group of healthy adults, we segmented the UF and the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF) and derived dMRI measures of the structural properties of the two pathways. We also used a behavioral experiment adapted from the monkey studies to characterize the ability of these individuals to learn to associate a person's face with a group of specific scenes (conditional visual-visual association). We then tested whether the variability in the dMRI measures of the two pathways correlated with variability in the ability to rapidly learn the face-place associations. Our study suggests that in the human, the left UF may be important for mediating the rapid learning of conditional visual-visual associations whereas the right UF may play an important role in the immediate retrieval of visual-visual associatio…
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Hemispheric asymmetry in the UF has been observed for both volume and diffusion metrics, but there are inconsistencies in the directionality of such asymmetry.
“Hemispheric asymmetry in the UF has been observed for both volume and diffusion metrics but there are inconsistencies in the directionality of such asymmetry of the UF.”
From Cortical Terminations of the Inferior Fronto-Occipital and Uncinate Fasciculi: Anatomical Stem-Based Virtual Dissection (2016) · cites this paper as Thomas et al., 2015
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Hau, J., Sarubbo, S., Perchey, G., Crivello, F., Zago, L., Mellet, E., Jobard, G., Joliot, M., Mazoyer, B. M., Tzourio-Mazoyer, N., et al. (2016) · Frontiers in Neuroanatomy · doi:10.3389/fnana.2016.00058 · Cited by 142 · see citing works
“Previous diffusion studies reported a rightward lateralized UF (Highley et al., 2002; Park et al., 2004; Thomas et al., 2015), however, asymmetry in the opposite direction has also been shown (Kubicki et al., 2002; Hasan et al., 2009) and some did not find any asymmetry in the UF (Thiebaut de…”
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Diminution of context association memory structure in subjects with subjective cognitive decline
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- Authors
- Thomas, C., Avram, A., Pierpaoli, C., & Baker, C.
- Affiliations
- National Institutes of Health (US)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (US)
- Corresponding author
- Thomas, Cibu
- Venue
- Cortex
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015-11
- Volume
- 72
- Pages
- 65-78
- ISSN
- 0010-9452 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2119036816
- Cited by
- 44
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 5.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Cortex (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- NICHD
- NIMH (MH002909-07)
- Department of Defense
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- uncinate fasciculus, inferior longitudinal fasciculus, white matter microstructure, orbitofrontal cortex, anterior temporal cortex, functional neuroanatomy, diffusion tensor imaging, hemispheric lateralization
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Association Learning, Brain, Female, Humans, Male, Neural Pathways, Visual Perception, Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Young Adult, White Matter
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