title: The vertical occipital fasciculus: a century of controversy resolved by in vivo measurements.
abstract: The vertical occipital fasciculus (VOF) is the only major fiber bundle connecting dorsolateral and ventrolateral visual cortex. Only a handful of studies have examined the anatomy of the VOF or its role in cognition in the living human brain. Here, we trace the contentious history of the VOF, beginning with its original discovery in monkey by Wernicke (1881) and in human by Obersteiner (1888), to its disappearance from the literature, and recent reemergence a century later. We introduce an algorithm to identify the VOF in vivo using diffusion-weighted imaging and tractography, and show that the VOF can be found in every hemisphere (n = 74). Quantitative T1 measurements demonstrate that tissue properties, such as myelination, in the VOF differ from neighboring white-matter tracts. The terminations of the VOF are in consistent positions relative to cortical folding patterns in the dorsal and ventral visual streams. Recent findings demonstrate that these same anatomical locations also mark cytoarchitectonic and functional transitions in dorsal and ventral visual cortex. We conclude that the VOF is likely to serve a unique role in the communication of signals between regions on the ventral surface that are important for the perception of visual categories (e.g., words, faces, bodies, etc.) and regions on the dorsal surface involved in the control of eye movements, attention, and motion perception.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; and Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 wandell@stanford.edu jdyeatman@gmail.com kweiner@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Jason D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Yeatman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; and wandell@stanford.edu jdyeatman@gmail.com kweiner@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Kevin S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Weiner
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; and.
authors.forename: Franco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pestilli
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; and.
authors.forename: Ariel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rokem
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; and.
authors.forename: Aviv
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mezer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; and wandell@stanford.edu jdyeatman@gmail.com kweiner@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Brian A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Wandell
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods*; D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology; D000882:Haplorhini; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology; D009413:Nerve Fibers, Myelinated / Q000502:physiology; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D066127:White Matter / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology
keywords: diffusion-weighted imaging; perpendicular fasciculus; quantitative T1; vertical occipital fasciculus