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BRAIN ORGANIZATION

Functional boundaries within human subcortex

Nature Neuroscience volume 23, pages 1312–1314 (2020)Cite this article

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Abrupt spatial changes in anatomic and functional properties of the brain demarcate boundaries between discrete functional areas. While previous work has identified these boundaries in cortex, a new study by Tian et al. applies this approach for the first time to subcortical structures within the in vivo human brain.

Understanding the organization of the human brain is a critical goal of systems neuroscience. The best evidence available from humans and nonhuman primates suggests that cortex, at least, is organized into a large number of discrete cortical areas1,2 with sharp boundaries between areas at which multiple brain properties, including function, architectonics, connectivity and/or topographical patterns, abruptly change3. In principle, mapping human brain areas by identifying the boundaries between them can also be accomplished and is the mapping approach most convergent with a body of invasive animal work that has provided substantial insight into brain organization. Indeed, previous work has made substantial progress in noninvasively mapping such areal transitions in the in vivo human cortex and thus putatively delineating (‘parcellating’) the areas themselves, using functional MRI (fMRI) resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) approaches4,5,6,7.

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Fig. 1: The gradientography method traces paths of changing connectivity through the human subcortex.

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  1. Department of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Evan M. Gordon

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  1. Evan M. Gordon
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Correspondence to Evan M. Gordon.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Gordon, E.M. Functional boundaries within human subcortex. Nat Neurosci 23, 1312–1314 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-020-00721-4

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