Mapping the human lateral geniculate nucleus and its cytoarchitectonic subdivisions using quantitative MRI

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Christa Müller-Axt - , Chair of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Author)
  • Cornelius Eichner - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Author)
  • Henriette Rusch - , Leipzig University (Author)
  • Louise Kauffmann - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Université Grenoble Alpes (Author)
  • Pierre Louis Bazin - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Amsterdam (Author)
  • Alfred Anwander - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Author)
  • Markus Morawski - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig University (Author)
  • Katharina von Kriegstein - , Chair of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience (Author)

Abstract

The human lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of the visual thalamus is a key subcortical processing site for visual information analysis. Due to its small size and deep location within the brain, a non-invasive characterization of the LGN and its microstructurally distinct magnocellular (M) and parvocellular (P) subdivisions in humans is challenging. Here, we investigated whether structural quantitative MRI (qMRI) methods that are sensitive to underlying microstructural tissue features enable MR-based mapping of human LGN M and P subdivisions. We employed high-resolution 7 Tesla in-vivo qMRI in N = 27 participants and ultra-high resolution 7 Tesla qMRI of a post-mortem human LGN specimen. We found that a quantitative assessment of the LGN and its subdivisions is possible based on microstructure-informed qMRI contrast alone. In both the in-vivo and post-mortem qMRI data, we identified two components of shorter and longer longitudinal relaxation time (T1) within the LGN that coincided with the known anatomical locations of a dorsal P and a ventral M subdivision, respectively. Through ground-truth histological validation, we further showed that the microstructural MRI contrast within the LGN pertains to cyto- and myeloarchitectonic tissue differences between its subdivisions. These differences were based on cell and myelin density, but not on iron content. Our qMRI-based mapping strategy paves the way for an in-depth understanding of LGN function and microstructure in humans. It further enables investigations into the selective contributions of LGN subdivisions to human behavior in health and disease.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number118559
Number of pages10
JournalNeuroImage
Volume2021
Issue number244
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2021
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 34562697
ORCID /0000-0001-7989-5860/work/142244388

Keywords

Sustainable Development Goals

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • Human, Lateral geniculate nucleus, Magnocellular, Parvocellular, Quantitative MRI, Thalamus