The controversial existence of the human superior fronto-occipital fasciculus: Connectome-based tractographic study with microdissection validation

• Published in: Human brain mapping Vol. 36; no. 12; pp. 4964 - 4971
• Main Authors: Meola, Antonio, Comert, Ayhan, Yeh, Fang-Cheng, Stefaneanu, Lucia, Fernandez-Miranda, Juan C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.12.2015; John Wiley & Sons, Inc; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Subjects: Adult; Connectome; diffusion tensor imaging; Female; Frontal Lobe - anatomy & histology; Humans; magnetic resonance imaging; Male; Microdissection; Nerve Net - physiology; Neural Pathways - physiology; Occipital Lobe - anatomy & histology; Reproducibility of Results; white matter; White Matter - anatomy & histology; Young Adult; white matter; connectome; diffusion tensor imaging; magnetic resonance imaging; microdissection
• ISSN: 1065-9471; 1097-0193; 1097-0193
• DOI: 10.1002/hbm.22990

The superior fronto‐occipital fasciculus (SFOF), a long association bundle that connects frontal and occipital lobes, is well‐documented in monkeys but is controversial in human brain. Its assumed role is in visual processing and spatial awareness. To date, anatomical and neuroimaging studies on human and animal brains are not in agreement about the existence, course, and terminations of SFOF. To clarify the existence of the SFOF in human brains, we applied deterministic fiber tractography to a template of 488 healthy subjects and to 80 individual subjects from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) and validated the results with white matter microdissection of post‐mortem human brains. The imaging results showed that previous reconstructions of the SFOF were generated by two false continuations, namely between superior thalamic peduncle (STP) and stria terminalis (ST), and ST and posterior thalamic peduncle. The anatomical microdissection confirmed this finding. No other fiber tracts in the previously described location of the SFOF were identified. Hence, our data suggest that the SFOF does not exist in the human brain. Hum Brain Mapp 36:4964–4971, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.