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Microstructural properties of the vertical occipital fasciculus explain the variability in human stereoacuity

Stereopsis is a fundamental visual function that has been studied extensively. However, it is not clear why depth discrimination (stereoacuity) varies more significantly among people than other modalities. Previous studies have reported the involvement of both dorsal and ventral visual areas in ster...

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Autores principales: Oishi, Hiroki, Takemura, Hiromasa, Aoki, Shuntaro C., Fujita, Ichiro, Amano, Kaoru
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6275509/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30429321
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804741115
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author Oishi, Hiroki
Takemura, Hiromasa
Aoki, Shuntaro C.
Fujita, Ichiro
Amano, Kaoru
author_facet Oishi, Hiroki
Takemura, Hiromasa
Aoki, Shuntaro C.
Fujita, Ichiro
Amano, Kaoru
author_sort Oishi, Hiroki
collection PubMed
description Stereopsis is a fundamental visual function that has been studied extensively. However, it is not clear why depth discrimination (stereoacuity) varies more significantly among people than other modalities. Previous studies have reported the involvement of both dorsal and ventral visual areas in stereopsis, implying that not only neural computations in cortical areas but also the anatomical properties of white matter tracts connecting those areas can impact stereopsis. Here, we studied how human stereoacuity relates to white matter properties by combining psychophysics, diffusion MRI (dMRI), and quantitative MRI (qMRI). We performed a psychophysical experiment to measure stereoacuity and, in the same participants, we analyzed the microstructural properties of visual white matter tracts on the basis of two independent measurements, dMRI (fractional anisotropy, FA) and qMRI (macromolecular tissue volume; MTV). Microstructural properties along the right vertical occipital fasciculus (VOF), a major tract connecting dorsal and ventral visual areas, were highly correlated with measures of stereoacuity. This result was consistent for both FA and MTV, suggesting that the behavioral–structural relationship reflects differences in neural tissue density, rather than differences in the morphological configuration of fibers. fMRI confirmed that binocular disparity stimuli activated the dorsal and ventral visual regions near VOF endpoints. No other occipital tracts explained the variance in stereoacuity. In addition, the VOF properties were not associated with differences in performance on a different psychophysical task (contrast detection). These series of experiments suggest that stereoscopic depth discrimination performance is, at least in part, constrained by dorso-ventral communication through the VOF.
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spelling pubmed-62755092018-12-05 Microstructural properties of the vertical occipital fasciculus explain the variability in human stereoacuity Oishi, Hiroki Takemura, Hiromasa Aoki, Shuntaro C. Fujita, Ichiro Amano, Kaoru Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Biological Sciences Stereopsis is a fundamental visual function that has been studied extensively. However, it is not clear why depth discrimination (stereoacuity) varies more significantly among people than other modalities. Previous studies have reported the involvement of both dorsal and ventral visual areas in stereopsis, implying that not only neural computations in cortical areas but also the anatomical properties of white matter tracts connecting those areas can impact stereopsis. Here, we studied how human stereoacuity relates to white matter properties by combining psychophysics, diffusion MRI (dMRI), and quantitative MRI (qMRI). We performed a psychophysical experiment to measure stereoacuity and, in the same participants, we analyzed the microstructural properties of visual white matter tracts on the basis of two independent measurements, dMRI (fractional anisotropy, FA) and qMRI (macromolecular tissue volume; MTV). Microstructural properties along the right vertical occipital fasciculus (VOF), a major tract connecting dorsal and ventral visual areas, were highly correlated with measures of stereoacuity. This result was consistent for both FA and MTV, suggesting that the behavioral–structural relationship reflects differences in neural tissue density, rather than differences in the morphological configuration of fibers. fMRI confirmed that binocular disparity stimuli activated the dorsal and ventral visual regions near VOF endpoints. No other occipital tracts explained the variance in stereoacuity. In addition, the VOF properties were not associated with differences in performance on a different psychophysical task (contrast detection). These series of experiments suggest that stereoscopic depth discrimination performance is, at least in part, constrained by dorso-ventral communication through the VOF. National Academy of Sciences 2018-11-27 2018-11-14 /pmc/articles/PMC6275509/ /pubmed/30429321 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804741115 Text en Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Biological Sciences
Oishi, Hiroki
Takemura, Hiromasa
Aoki, Shuntaro C.
Fujita, Ichiro
Amano, Kaoru
Microstructural properties of the vertical occipital fasciculus explain the variability in human stereoacuity
title Microstructural properties of the vertical occipital fasciculus explain the variability in human stereoacuity
title_full Microstructural properties of the vertical occipital fasciculus explain the variability in human stereoacuity
title_fullStr Microstructural properties of the vertical occipital fasciculus explain the variability in human stereoacuity
title_full_unstemmed Microstructural properties of the vertical occipital fasciculus explain the variability in human stereoacuity
title_short Microstructural properties of the vertical occipital fasciculus explain the variability in human stereoacuity
title_sort microstructural properties of the vertical occipital fasciculus explain the variability in human stereoacuity
topic Biological Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6275509/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30429321
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804741115
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