Structural and functional connectivity of the nondecussating dentato-rubro-thalamic tract.
Neuroimage
; 176: 364-371, 2018 08 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-29733955
ABSTRACT
The dentato-rubro-thalamic tract (DRTT) regulates motor control, connecting the cerebellum to the thalamus. This tract is modulated by deep-brain stimulation in the surgical treatment of medically refractory tremor, especially in essential tremor, where high-frequency stimulation of the thalamus can improve symptoms. The DRTT is classically described as a decussating pathway, ascending to the contralateral thalamus. However, the existence of a nondecussating (i.e. ipsilateral) DRTT in humans was recently demonstrated, and these tracts are arranged in distinct regions of the superior cerebellar peduncle. We hypothesized that the ipsilateral DRTT is connected to specific thalamic nuclei and therefore may have unique functional relevance. The goals of this study were to confirm the presence of the decussating and nondecussating DRTT pathways, identify thalamic termination zones of each tract, and compare whether structural connectivity findings agree with functional connectivity. Diffusion-weighted imaging was used to perform probabilistic tractography of the decussating and nondecussating DRTT in young healthy subjects from the Human Connectome Project (nâ¯=â¯91) scanned using multi-shell diffusion-weighted imaging (270 directions; TR/TEâ¯=â¯5500/89â¯ms; spatial resolutionâ¯=â¯1.25â¯mm isotropic). To define thalamic anatomical landmarks, a segmentation procedure based on the Morel Atlas was employed, and DRTT targeting was quantified based on the proportion of streamlines arriving at each nucleus. In parallel, functional connectivity analysis was performed using resting-state functional MRI (TR/TEâ¯=â¯720/33â¯ms; spatial resolutionâ¯=â¯2â¯mm isotropic). It was found that the decussating and nondecussating DRTTs have significantly different thalamic endpoints, with the former preferentially targeting relatively anterior and lateral thalamic nuclei, and the latter connected to more posterior and medial nuclei (pâ¯<â¯0.001). Functional and structural connectivity measures were found to be significantly correlated (râ¯=â¯0.45, pâ¯=â¯0.031). These findings provide new insight into pathways through which unilateral cerebellum can exert bilateral influence on movement and raise questions about the functional implications of ipsilateral cerebellar efferents.
Key words
Full text:
1
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Thalamus
/
Red Nucleus
/
Cerebellum
/
Diffusion Tensor Imaging
/
Connectome
/
White Matter
/
Neural Pathways
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
En
Journal:
Neuroimage
Journal subject:
DIAGNOSTICO POR IMAGEM
Year:
2018
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United States