Functionally defined white matter of the macaque monkey brain reveals a dorso-ventral attention network
- The Rockefeller University, United States
- Indiana University, United States
- University of Bremen, Germany
Abstract
Classical studies of attention have identified areas of parietal and frontal cortex as sources of attentional control. Recently, a ventral region in the macaque temporal cortex, the posterior infero-temporal dorsal area PITd, has been suggested as a third attentional control area. This raises the question of whether and how spatially distant areas coordinate a joint focus of attention. Here we tested the hypothesis that parieto-frontal attention areas and PITd are directly interconnected. By combining functional MRI with ex-vivo high-resolution diffusion MRI, we found that PITd and dorsal attention areas are all directly connected through three specific fascicles. These results ascribe a new function, the communication of attention signals, to two known fiber-bundles, highlight the importance of vertical interactions across the two visual streams, and imply that the control of endogenous attention, hitherto thought to reside in macaque dorsal cortical areas, is exerted by a dorso-ventral network.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files. Source data for Figures 2, 3, 4, 5, have been made available via the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/8ks5t/).
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Functionally defined white matter of the macaque monkey brain reveals a dorso-ventral attention network - DataOpen Science Framework, 10.17605/OSF.IO/8KS5T.
Article and author information
Author details
Winrich A Freiwald
Funding
Leon Levy Foundation (https://leonlevyfoundation.org/leon-levy-fellowship-neuroscience)
- Ilaria Sani
National Science Foundation (BCS-1734853)
- Franco Pestilli
New York Stem Cell Foundation (https://nyscf.org)
- Winrich A Freiwald
National Science Foundation (BCS-1057006)
- Winrich A Freiwald
National Institutes of Health (NIMH ULTTR001108)
- Franco Pestilli
Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (Passthrough)
- Franco Pestilli
Microsoft Research (Azure Credits Award)
- Franco Pestilli
Indiana University (Areas of Emergent Research initiative Learning: Brains-Machines-Children)
- Franco Pestilli
National Institutes of Health (1U54MH091657)
- Franco Pestilli
National Science Foundation (IIS-1636893)
- Franco Pestilli
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Heidi Johansen-Berg, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Ethics
Animal experimentation: Our Protocols protocol has been approved by The Rockefeller University, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. In vivo imaging procedures were performed at the Center for Advanced Imaging of Bremen University. They conformed to the National Institutes of Health Guide for Use and Care of Laboratory Animals, regulations for the welfare of experimental animals issued by the federal government of Germany,and stipulations of local Bremen authorities
Version history
- Received: July 29, 2018
- Accepted: December 20, 2018
- Accepted Manuscript published: January 2, 2019 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: January 24, 2019 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2019, Sani et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Functionally defined white matter of the macaque monkey brain reveals a dorso-ventral attention network
eLife 8:e40520.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.40520
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