title: Assessment of functional and structural connectivity between motor cortex and thalamus using fMRI and DWI.
abstract: Connectivity evaluations have been performed in a noninvasive manner by examining resting state fMRI alongside diffusion-weighted images (DWI). The spatial structures of coherent spontaneous BOLD fluctuations provided the most convincing preliminary evidence that the BOLD signal was predominantly of neuronal origin rather than non-neuronal, artifactual noise. In this study we have shown that in thalamocortical network, the results of functional connectivity analysis and DWI correspond well with each other, thereby providing cross-validation of the two techniques. We have used the resting state fMRI data of 3 subjects with 10 minute resting state functional images via a 3T Siemens scanner. we used cross correlation for functional analysis and reported thalamocortical results with p value=0.01 and cluster size=100, Then showed corresponding tracts connecting premotor cortex and thalamus. In addition, both techniques correspond well to histological delineation and invasive tract tracing, which provides a 'gold standard' validation of the two techniques. The degree of structural connectivity has been shown to correlate with the strength of functional connectivity, thereby providing a potentially straightforward structural explanation for many of the changes in functional connectivity in disease states.
authors.affiliation: Physics and Biomedical Engineering Department, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Jaberzadeh@razi.tums.ac.ir
authors.forename: A H Jaberzadeh
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Ansari
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Oghabian
authors.forename: G A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Hossein-Zadeh
mesh_terms: D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D013382:Subtraction Technique; D013788:Thalamus / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*