Abstract #3471

Laminar-Specific Output- To Input-Layer Connections Between Cortical Areas V1 and MT Observed with High-Resolution Resting-State FMRI

Jonathan Rizzo Polimeni¹, Bruce Fischl^1,2, Douglas N. Greve¹, Lawrence L. Wald^1,3

¹Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States; ²Computer Science and AI Lab (CSAIL), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States; ³Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States

In this study, we demonstrate a laminar-specific BOLD response using resting state measurements of functional connectivity within visual cortex by exploiting the known anatomical connectivity pattern between output Layer II/III in cortical area V1 and input Layer IV in area MT observed by invasive studies. This laminar correlation signature was absent from cross-hemispheric laminar correlations measured between left and right V1. These V1-to-MT laminar-specific resting state correlations demonstrate the ability of high-resolution rs-fMRI to probe laminar-specific connections and to infer the directionality of the connectivity, and provide evidence that the BOLD signal is controlled, to some degree, on the laminar level.