Julia M. Boehm1,2, Veit Roessner2, Peter Dechent1, Juergen Baudewig1
1MR-Research in Neurology and Psychiatry, University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany; 2Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany
Corticostriatal interconnections are thought to be organized in anatomically and functionally segregated circuits. We attempted visualization of the pure motor and the associative loop by using a self-paced finger tapping task performed with either hand separately. Brain regions involved in both, left and right unimanual movements were identified via conjunction analysis, a contrast analysis revealed regions behaving movement side specifically. Coactivation of anterior SMA, pre-SMA and anterior striatum allowed assignment to associative parts, coactivation of posterior SMA, SMC and posterior striatum to purely executive parts of corticostriatal interconnections. We provide a new in-vivo visualization of corticostrial interconnections using BOLD fMRI.