Connectivity of the Cingulate Sulcus Visual Area (CSv) in the Human Cerebral Cortex.

Andrew T Smith,Michele Furlan,Anton L Beer,Rogier B Mars

doi:10.1093/cercor/bhx002

Abstract

The human cingulate sulcus visual area (CSv) responds selectively to visual and vestibular cues to self-motion. Although it is more selective for visual self-motion cues than any other brain region studied, it is not known whether CSv mediates perception of self-motion. An alternative hypothesis, based on its location, is that it provides sensory information to the motor system for use in guiding locomotion. To evaluate this hypothesis we studied the connectivity pattern of CSv, which is completely unknown, with a combination of diffusion MRI and resting-state functional MRI. Converging results from the 2 approaches suggest that visual drive is provided primarily by areas hV6, pVIP (putative intraparietal cortex) and PIC (posterior insular cortex). A strong connection with the medial portion of the somatosensory cortex, which represents the legs and feet, suggests that CSv may receive locomotion-relevant proprioceptive information as well as visual and vestibular signals. However, the dominant connections of CSv are with specific components of the motor system, in particular the cingulate motor areas and the supplementary motor area. We propose that CSv may provide a previously unknown link between perception and action that serves the online control of locomotion.

Highlights

Interest in the neural substrates of visual motion perception has recently focused strongly on self-motion
We propose that cingulate sulcus visual area (CSv) may provide a previously unknown link between perception and action that serves the online control of locomotion
In order to test whether CSv shows a connectivity profile that is distinct from other cingulate areas, we performed a connectivity-based parcellation (Beckmann et al 2009)

Summary

Introduction

Interest in the neural substrates of visual motion perception has recently focused strongly on self-motion (egomotion). 2 cortical regions, the dorsal middle superior temporal area (MSTd) and the ventral intraparietal area (VIP), have long been known to contain neurons that are selectively sensitive to optic flow (Tanaka and Saito 1989; Duffy and Wurtz 1991) and to direction of heading (Duffy and Wurtz 1995; Bremmer et al 2002) Electrical stimulation of these regions can influence heading judgments (Britten and van Wezel 2002; Zhang and Britten 2011) suggesting that they may contribute directly to perceptual awareness, reversible inactivation impairs heading only in the case of MSTd (Chen et al 2016) suggesting that VIP may not mediate perception. As for MSTd, inactivation of this region impairs visual heading judgments (Chen et al 2016)

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Conclusion