title: Broca's area - thalamic connectivity.
abstract: Broca's area is crucially involved in language processing. The sub-regions of Broca's area (pars triangularis, pars opercularis) presumably are connected via corticocortical pathways. However, growing evidence suggests that the thalamus may also be involved in language and share some of the linguistic functions supported by Broca's area. Functional connectivity is thought to be achieved via corticothalamic/thalamocortical white matter pathways. Our study investigates structural connectivity between Broca's area and the thalamus, specifically ventral anterior nucleus and pulvinar. We demonstrate that Broca's area shares direct connections with these thalamic nuclei and suggest a local Broca's area-thalamus network potentially involved in linguistic processing. Thalamic connectivity with Broca's area may serve to selectively recruit cortical regions storing multimodal features of lexical items and to bind them together during lexical-semantic processing. In addition, Broca's area-thalamic circuitry may enable cortico-thalamo-cortical information transfer and modulation between BA 44 and 45 during language comprehension and production.
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterans Affairs, Rehabilitation Research and Development Brain Rehabilitation Research Center at the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center, Gainesville, FL 32608, USA. Electronic address: sokolova@ufl.edu.
authors.forename: Anastasia A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Bohsali
authors.affiliation: University of Florida, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA; McKnight Brain Institute, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Triplett
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, CA 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Atchar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sudhyadhom
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterans Affairs, Rehabilitation Research and Development Brain Rehabilitation Research Center at the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center, Gainesville, FL 32608, USA; University of Florida, Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA.
authors.forename: Joseph M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Gullett
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterans Affairs, Rehabilitation Research and Development Center of Excellence at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, Atlanta, GA 30033, USA; Department of Neurology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: McGregor
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterans Affairs, Rehabilitation Research and Development Brain Rehabilitation Research Center at the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center, Gainesville, FL 32608, USA; Neurology Service/127, North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System and Department of Neurology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32608, USA.
authors.forename: David B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: FitzGerald
authors.affiliation: University of Florida, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA; McKnight Brain Institute, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mareci
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterans Affairs, Rehabilitation Research and Development Brain Rehabilitation Research Center at the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center, Gainesville, FL 32608, USA; University of Florida, Department Psychology, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: White
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterans Affairs, Rehabilitation Research and Development Center of Excellence at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, Atlanta, GA 30033, USA; Department of Neurology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA; Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA.
authors.forename: Bruce
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Crosson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D065711:Broca Area / Q000502:physiology*; D063132:Connectome; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D012660:Semantics; D013788:Thalamus / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Broca’s area; Language; Pulvinar; Thalamus; Tractography; Ventral anterior nucleus; White matter