CORRELATIONAL IMAGING OF THALAMOCORTICAL COUPLING IN THE PRIMARY VISUAL PATHWAY OF THE HUMAN BRAIN

While the anatomy of the human brain is well defined, the functional c onnectivity of its structures is far less understood. Modern neuroimag ing techniques offer the unique opportunity of visualizing physiologic activation in central nervous structures and of identifying the eleme nts underlying distributed networks for information processing. Follow ing improved spatial resolution of deoxyhemoglobin-sensitive magnetic resonance imaging, we were able to detect simultaneous signal changes in the lateral geniculate nucleus and primary visual cortex during per iodic photic stimulation. Visualization of coupled activation by cross -correlation analysis resulted in the first demonstration of thalamoco rtical interaction in the primary visual pathway of the intact human b rain.