TY - JOUR
T1 - Diffusion weighted imaging evidence of extra-callosal pathways for interhemispheric communication after complete commissurotomy
AU - Nomi, Jason S.
AU - Marshall, Emily
AU - Zaidel, Eran
AU - Biswal, Bharat
AU - Castellanos, F. Xavier
AU - Dick, Anthony Steven
AU - Uddin, Lucina Q.
AU - Mooshagian, Eric
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding This work was supported by a University of Miami Gabelli Senior Scholar Award, an award from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and National Institute of Mental Health [R01MH107549] to LQU. We also acknowledge the Nathan Kline Institute Enhanced Rockland Sample for the availability of age-matched comparison participants, collected with support from R01MH094639.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2019/6/1
Y1 - 2019/6/1
N2 - The integrity of white matter architecture in the human brain is related to cognitive processing abilities. The corpus callosum is the largest white matter bundle interconnecting the two cerebral hemispheres. “Split-brain” patients in whom all cortical commissures have been severed to alleviate intractable epilepsy demonstrate remarkably intact cognitive abilities despite the lack of this important interhemispheric pathway. While it has often been speculated that there are compensatory alterations in the remaining interhemispheric fibers in split-brain patients several years post-commissurotomy, this has never been directly shown. Here we examined extra-callosal pathways for interhemispheric communication in the brain of a patient who underwent complete cerebral commissurotomy using diffusion weighted imaging tractography. We found that compared with a healthy age-matched comparison group, the split-brain patient exhibited increased fractional anisotropy (FA) of the dorsal and ventral pontine decussations of the cortico-cerebellar interhemispheric pathways. Few differences were observed between the patient and the comparison group with respect to FA of other long-range intrahemispheric fibers. These results point to specific cerebellar anatomical substrates that may account for the spared interhemispheric coordination and intact cognitive abilities that have been extensively documented in this unique patient.
AB - The integrity of white matter architecture in the human brain is related to cognitive processing abilities. The corpus callosum is the largest white matter bundle interconnecting the two cerebral hemispheres. “Split-brain” patients in whom all cortical commissures have been severed to alleviate intractable epilepsy demonstrate remarkably intact cognitive abilities despite the lack of this important interhemispheric pathway. While it has often been speculated that there are compensatory alterations in the remaining interhemispheric fibers in split-brain patients several years post-commissurotomy, this has never been directly shown. Here we examined extra-callosal pathways for interhemispheric communication in the brain of a patient who underwent complete cerebral commissurotomy using diffusion weighted imaging tractography. We found that compared with a healthy age-matched comparison group, the split-brain patient exhibited increased fractional anisotropy (FA) of the dorsal and ventral pontine decussations of the cortico-cerebellar interhemispheric pathways. Few differences were observed between the patient and the comparison group with respect to FA of other long-range intrahemispheric fibers. These results point to specific cerebellar anatomical substrates that may account for the spared interhemispheric coordination and intact cognitive abilities that have been extensively documented in this unique patient.
KW - Corpus callosum
KW - Epilepsy
KW - Hemispheric specialization
KW - Interhemispheric transfer
KW - Laterality
KW - Structural connectivity
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U2 - 10.1007/s00429-019-01864-2
DO - 10.1007/s00429-019-01864-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 31062161
AN - SCOPUS:85065431913
VL - 224
SP - 1897
EP - 1909
JO - Brain Structure and Function
JF - Brain Structure and Function
SN - 1863-2653
IS - 5
ER -