Hidden Territory Of The Human Brain Explored!

Novel, non-invasive imaging-based methods have been discovered by neuroscientists at Technische Universität Dresden to investigate an important brain structure (the visual sensory thalamus). The study “Mapping the human lateral geniculate nucleus and its cytoarchitectonic subdivisions using quantitative MRI”, explores a new method for providing an in-depth understanding of visual sensory processing in near future.

The visual sensory thalamus is known to be a key region that connects the eyes with the cerebral cortex. It is the point of origin of visual difficulties in many diseases such as dyslexia and glaucoma.

Decoding Hidden Territory

The area contains two tiny major compartments that are located very deep inside the brain. This made it difficult to be assessed so far, thereby adding to the struggle to decode visual sensory processing.

However, the study team used unique neuroimaging data with high spatial resolution on a specialized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine at the MPI-CBS in Leipzig to explore the area.

It was found that the two major compartments of the visual sensory thalamus are characterized by different amounts of brain white matter (myelin), as detected in novel MRI data, obtained from post-mortem studies of developmental dyslexia.

“The finding that we can display visual sensory thalamus compartments in living humans is fantastic, as it will be a great tool for understanding visual sensory processing both in health and disease in the near future”, says first author Christa Müller-Axt.

Source-Medindia