Intrinsic Functional Architecture of Dentate Nuclei in Autism Spectrum Disorder

摘要/文摘

Summary/Abstract Functional neuroanatomy in human dentate nucleus (DN) remains largely unmapped. Functional magnetic resonance imaging research has redefined broad categories of functional division in the human brain showing that primary processing, attentional “task positive” processing, and default-mode “task negative” processing are three central poles of neural macro-scale specialization. This new macro-scale understanding of the range and poles of brain function has revealed that not only cerebral cortex, but also thalamus, striatum, and cerebellar cortex contribute to the full spectrum of human neural organization. Whether functional specialization in DN obeys a similar set of macroscale divisions, and whether DN is yet another compartment of full-spectrum representation of human brain function remains unknown. This proposal aims to explore functional territories in human DN. Preliminary results using data-driven gradient-based clustering analysis reveal three functional zones as indexed by high spatio-temporal resolution resting-state MRI, and that these three distinct territories contribute uniquely to default-mode, salience-motor, and visual brain networks. Our goal is to replicate the results in an independent larger sample to provide a systems neuroscience substrate for cerebellar output to influence all broad categories of neural control – namely default-mode, attentional, and multiple unimodal streams of information processing including motor and visual. The overarching aim of this proposal is to apply these functional territories towards clinical translation, specifically in the context of Autism Spectrum Disorder.