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Abstract #1662

Gradual Variation of Anatomical Connectivity in the Macaque Insula Revealed by Probabilistic Tractography

Leonardo Cerliani1, Helen D'Arceuil2, Rajat M. Thomas3, Saad Jbabdi4, Christian M. Keysers1

1Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen, Neuroimaging Center, Groningen, Netherlands; 2Dept. of Radiology, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, United States; 3Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen, Netherlands; 4FMRIB Centre, Univ. of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, United Kingdom


The connectivity of the macaque insula was analyzed by means of probabilistic tractography on diffusion-weighted images. The main aim was to detect and analyze trajectories of connectivity variation in this brain region, and to test the consistency of the results with the available anatomical evidence from animal literature. The employed method of laplacian eigenmaps was able to recover the expected gradual change in connectivity, and to discriminate this with the sharp transition in connectivity featured by the medial motor cortex