TY - JOUR
T1 - The anatomy of the human medial forebrain bundle
T2 - Ventral tegmental area connections to reward-associated subcortical and frontal lobe regions
AU - Coenen, Volker Arnd
AU - Schumacher, Lena Valerie
AU - Kaller, Christoph
AU - Schlaepfer, Thomas Eduard
AU - Reinacher, Peter Christoph
AU - Egger, Karl
AU - Urbach, Horst
AU - Reisert, Marco
N1 - Funding Information:
Unrelated: VA Coenen has received honoraries and travel expenses for talks from Medtronic (USA), Boston Scientific (USA), Desitin (Europe). He has received limited funding for (in part ongoing) IITs from Boston Scientific and Medtronic and for collaborative work with Brainlab AG (Feldkirchen, Germany). VA Coenen is member of the scientific advisory board for CorTec (Freiburg, Germany). M Reisert was funded by grant from BrainLab AG (Feldkirchen, Germany).
Funding Information:
HCP acknoledgement: Data used in the preparation of this work were obtained from the MGH-USC Human Connectome Project (HCP) database ( https://ida.loni.usc.edu/login.jsp ). The HCP project (Principal Investigators: Bruce Rosen, M.D., Ph.D., Martinos Center at Massachusetts General Hospital; Arthur W. Toga, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, Van J. Weeden, MD, Martinos Center at Massachusetts General Hospital) is supported by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Collectively, the HCP is the result of efforts of co-investigators from the University of California, Los Angeles, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Washington University, and the University of Minnesota.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Authors
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Introduction: Despite their importance in reward, motivation, and learning there is only sparse anatomical knowledge about the human medial forebrain bundle (MFB) and the connectivity of the ventral tegmental area (VTA). A thorough anatomical and microstructural description of the reward related PFC/OFC regions and their connection to the VTA - the superolateral branch of the MFB (slMFB) - is however mandatory to enable an interpretation of distinct therapeutic effects from different interventional treatment modalities in neuropsychiatric disorders (DBS, TMS etc.). This work aims at a normative description of the human MFB (and more detailed the slMFB) anatomy with respect to distant prefrontal connections and microstructural features. Methods and material: Healthy subjects (n = 55; mean age ± SD, 40 ± 10 years; 32 females) underwent high resolution anatomical magnetic resonance imaging including diffusion tensor imaging. Connectivity of the VTA and the resulting slMFB were investigated on the group level using a global tractography approach. The Desikan/Killiany parceling (8 segments) of the prefrontal cortex was used to describe sub-segments of the MFB. A qualitative overlap with Brodmann areas was additionally described. Additionally, a pure visual analysis was performed comparing local and global tracking approaches for their ability to fully visualize the slMFB. Results: The MFB could be robustly described both in the present sample as well as in additional control analyses in data from the human connectome project. Most VTA- connections reached the superior frontal gyrus, the middel frontal gyrus and the lateral orbitofrontal region corresponding to Brodmann areas 10, 9, 8, 11, and 11m. The projections to these regions comprised 97% (right) and 98% (left) of the total relative fiber counts of the slMFB. Discussion: The anatomical description of the human MFB shows far reaching connectivity of VTA to reward-related subcortical and cortical prefrontal regions - but not to emotion-related regions on the medial cortical surface - realized via the superolateral branch of the MFB. Local tractography approaches appear to be inferior in showing these far-reaching projections. Since these local approaches are typically used for surgical targeting of DBS procedures, the here established detailed map might - as a normative template - guide future efforts to target deep brain stimulation of the slMFB in depression and other disorders related to dysfunction of reward and reward-associated learning.
AB - Introduction: Despite their importance in reward, motivation, and learning there is only sparse anatomical knowledge about the human medial forebrain bundle (MFB) and the connectivity of the ventral tegmental area (VTA). A thorough anatomical and microstructural description of the reward related PFC/OFC regions and their connection to the VTA - the superolateral branch of the MFB (slMFB) - is however mandatory to enable an interpretation of distinct therapeutic effects from different interventional treatment modalities in neuropsychiatric disorders (DBS, TMS etc.). This work aims at a normative description of the human MFB (and more detailed the slMFB) anatomy with respect to distant prefrontal connections and microstructural features. Methods and material: Healthy subjects (n = 55; mean age ± SD, 40 ± 10 years; 32 females) underwent high resolution anatomical magnetic resonance imaging including diffusion tensor imaging. Connectivity of the VTA and the resulting slMFB were investigated on the group level using a global tractography approach. The Desikan/Killiany parceling (8 segments) of the prefrontal cortex was used to describe sub-segments of the MFB. A qualitative overlap with Brodmann areas was additionally described. Additionally, a pure visual analysis was performed comparing local and global tracking approaches for their ability to fully visualize the slMFB. Results: The MFB could be robustly described both in the present sample as well as in additional control analyses in data from the human connectome project. Most VTA- connections reached the superior frontal gyrus, the middel frontal gyrus and the lateral orbitofrontal region corresponding to Brodmann areas 10, 9, 8, 11, and 11m. The projections to these regions comprised 97% (right) and 98% (left) of the total relative fiber counts of the slMFB. Discussion: The anatomical description of the human MFB shows far reaching connectivity of VTA to reward-related subcortical and cortical prefrontal regions - but not to emotion-related regions on the medial cortical surface - realized via the superolateral branch of the MFB. Local tractography approaches appear to be inferior in showing these far-reaching projections. Since these local approaches are typically used for surgical targeting of DBS procedures, the here established detailed map might - as a normative template - guide future efforts to target deep brain stimulation of the slMFB in depression and other disorders related to dysfunction of reward and reward-associated learning.
KW - Brain
KW - Deep brain stimulation
KW - Depression
KW - Human
KW - Medial forebrain bundle
KW - Normal anatomy
KW - Obsessive compulsive disorder
KW - TMS
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U2 - 10.1016/j.nicl.2018.03.019
DO - 10.1016/j.nicl.2018.03.019
M3 - Article
C2 - 29845013
AN - SCOPUS:85044048811
SN - 2213-1582
VL - 18
SP - 770
EP - 783
JO - NeuroImage: Clinical
JF - NeuroImage: Clinical
ER -