3-DIMENSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE HUMAN CENTRAL SULCUS REVEALS A MORPHOLOGICAL CORRELATE OF THE HAND AREA

One way to improve our understanding of cortical anatomy is to visuali ze the three-dimensional (30) shape of the cerebral sulci which is nor mally hidden. Here, we reconstructed the 30 morphology of the central sulcus (CS) in 17 normal subjects, using conventional magnetic resonan ce images and dedicated software. We found that the 30 morphology was remarkably consistent in all central sulci. Our analyses revealed thre e different regions (upper, middle and lower), which were easily ident ifiable by morphological criteria and sharply interconnected in the re constructed CS. These morphological regions appear to have a strong fu nctional significance, since the middle region corresponded precisely to the 'hand area', as verified by hand vibration positron emission to mography activation studies in eight cases. These data suggest that th e 30 anatomy of the cerebral cortex may facilitate sulcal recognition, and sulcal subdivision into smaller morphological elements, hearing r emarkable relationships with functional cortical maps.