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Poster Session C: Friday, August 15, 2:00 – 5:00 pm, de Brug & E‑Hall

Anatomy-based estimates indicate that cortical stimulation can only sparsely affect long-range connections

Dora Hermes¹, Maria Guadalupe Yanez-Ramos¹, Nicholas M. Gregg, Gregory A. Worrell¹, Cameron McIntyre, Hiromasa Takemura², Kai J. Miller; ¹Mayo Clinic, ²National Institute for Physiological Sciences

Presenter: Dora Hermes

Knowledge of how human neuroanatomy influences stimulation induced neural signal propagation is essential for understanding brain network function and advancing neuromodulation technologies. Here, we investigate how neuroanatomical properties of the ventral and dorsal visual pathways guide signal propagation when stimulating ventral temporal cortex. We calculate that the convoluted dorsal and ventral surface areas in the human brain span centimeters of gray matter cortex, while the smallest cross sectional area of the white matter pathway connecting these areas only spans millimeters. Using single pulse electrical stimulation of the ventral temporal cortex, we find that evoked responses measured with intracranial EEG (iEEG) follow this neuroanatomical layout. Ventral temporal gray matter stimulation evokes little responses in dorsal visual electrodes, whereas adjacent white matter stimulation evokes strong responses in many dorsal electrodes. The influence of cortical stimulation on connected areas in the human brain thus seems limited by inherently sparse cortico-cortical connectivity, whereas white matter stimulation may provide more widespread influence.

Topic Area: Brain Networks & Neural Dynamics

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