Abstract #4315

Cognitive and motor topography of human dentate nuclei identified with tractography and clustering methods

Fulvia Palesi^1,2, Matteo Ferrante³, Marta Gaviraghi⁴, Anastasia Misiti⁴, Giovanni Savini⁵, Alessandro Lascialfari³, Egidio D'Angelo^1,2, and Claudia A. M. Gandini Wheeler-Kingshott^1,2,6

¹Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy, ²Brain Connectivity Center Research Department, IRCCS Mondino Foundation, Pavia, Italy, ³Department of Physics, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy, ⁴Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy, ⁵Advanced Imaging and Radiomics Center, Neuroradiology Department, IRCCS Mondino Foundation, Pavia, Italy, ⁶NMR Research Unit, Queen Square MS Centre, Department of Neuroinflammation, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London (UCL), London, United Kingdom

The dentate nuclei (DNs) represent the main output relay of the cerebellum and yet are often unexplored especially in human studies. For the first time, we used both tractography and an unsupervised fuzzy c-means classification algorithm to identify DNs topography on the basis of their connectivity to cerebellar and cerebral areas as well as their microstructural features. Our findings indicate that DNs can be parcellated in two main areas: one predominant non-motor representation and one motor representation. Furthermore, connectivity-based and microstructure-based atlases provide complementary information. These results represent a step-forward that could help interpretating pathological conditions involving cerebro-cerebellar circuits.

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