A Brief Intro to Cortical Neuroanatomy

14 Major Sulci
Main sulci are formed early in development
Fissures are really deep sulci
Typically continuous sulci
•Interhemispheric fissure
•Sylvian fissure
•Parieto-occipital fissure
•Collateral sulcus
•Central sulcus
•Calcarine Sulcus
Typically discontinuous sulci
•Superior frontal sulcus
•Inferior frontal sulcus
•Postcentral sulcus
•Intraparietal sulcus
•Superior temporal sulcus
•Inferior temporal sulcus
•Cingulate sulcus
•Precentral sulcus
Other minor sulci are much less reliable
Source: Ono, 1990

Interhemispheric Fissure
hugely deep (down to corpus callosum)
-divides brain into 2 hemispheres

Sylvian Fissure
-hugely deep
-mostly horizontal
-insula (purple) is buried within it
-separates temporal lobe from parietal and frontal lobes
Sylvian Fissure

Parieto-occipital Fissure and Calcarine Sulcus
Parieto-occipital fissure (red)
-very deep
-often Y-shaped from sagittal view, X-shaped in horizontal and coronal views
Cuneus (pink)
-visual areas on medial side above calcarine (lower visual field)
Calcarine sulcus (blue)
-contains V1
Lingual gyrus (yellow)
-visual areas on medial side below calcarine and above collateral sulcus
(upper visual field)

Collateral Sulcus
-divides lingual (yellow) and parahippocampal (green) gyri from fusiform gyrus (pink)

Cingulate Sulcus
divides cingulate gyrus (turquoise) from precuneus (purple) and paracentral lobule (gold)

Central, Postcentral and Precentral Sulci
Central Sulcus (red)
-usually freestanding (no intersections)
-just anterior to ascending cingulate
Postcentral Sulcus (red)
-often in two parts (superior and inferior)
-often intersects with intraparietal sulcus
-marks posterior end of postcentral gyrus
(somatosensory strip, purple)
Precentral Sulcus (red)
-often in two parts (superior and inferior)
-intersects with superior frontal sulcus (Tjunction)
-marks anterior end of precentral gyrus (motor strip, yellow)

Intraparietal Sulcus
anterior end usually intersects with inferior postcentral (some texts call inferior postcentral the ascending intraparietal sulcus)
-posterior end usually forms a T-junction with the transverse occipital sulcus (just posterior to the parieto-occipital fissure)
-IPS divides the superior parietal lobule from the inferior parietal lobule (angular gyrus, gold, and supramarginal gyrus, lime)
POF

Slice Views inverted omega
= hand area of motor cortex

Superior and Inferior Temporal Sulci
Superior Temporal Sulcus (red)
-divides superior temporal gyrus (peach) from middle temporal gyrus (lime)
Inferior Temporal Sulcus (blue)
-not usually very continuous
-divides middle temporal gyrus from inferior temporal gyrus (lavender)

Superior and Inferior Frontal Sulci
Superior Frontal Sulcus (red)
-divides superior frontal gyrus (mocha) from middle frontal gyrus (pink)
Inferior Frontal Sulcus (blue)
-divides middle frontal gyrus from inferior frontal gyrus (gold) orbital gyrus (green) and frontal pole (gray) also shown
Frontal Eye fields lie at this junction

Medial Frontal
-superior frontal gyrus continues on medial side
-frontal pole (gray) and orbital gyrus (green) also shown

Learning More Anatomy
Duvernoy , 1999, The Human Brain: Surface, Blood Supply, and Three-Dimensional Sectional
Anatomy
•beautiful pictures
•clear anatomy
•slices of real brain
Damasio ,1995, Human Brain Anatomy in Computerized Images
•good for showing sulci across wide range of slice planes
•really crappy reconstructions
Ono , 1990, Atlas of the Cerebral Sulci
•great for showing intersubject variability
•gives probabilities of configurations and stats on sulci
Tamraz & Comair , 2000, Atlas of Regional Anatomy of the Brain Using MRI with Functional
Correlations
•good overview

JODY – THE FOLLOWING SLIDE ARE
FROM THE NORWAY PAGE

Anatomical and Functional Neuroanatomy
Images from Brain Voyager
Brain Tutor (Freeware)

Cortical Neuroanatomy
Carpenter, 1991, Core Text of Neuroanatomy
Why is so little attention paid to the cortex in traditional neuroanatomy?

Learning More Anatomy
In my personal order of preference…
Duvernoy , 1999, The Human Brain: Surface, Blood Supply, and Three-Dimensional Sectional Anatomy
• beautiful pictures
• good schematic diagrams
• clear anatomy
• slices of real brain
• Springer, US$326
Wanna get rich? Publish a brain atlas.
Sheesh, these are expensive!
Ono , 1990, Atlas of the Cerebral Sulci
• great for showing intersubject variability
• gives probabilities of configurations and stats on sulci
• Theime, US$199
Damasio ,1995, Human Brain Anatomy in Computerized Images
• good for showing sulci across wide range of slice planes
• really crappy reconstructions in first edition
• second edition available April 2005 with new images
• Oxford University Press, US$125
Tamraz & Comair , 2000, Atlas of Regional Anatomy of the Brain Using MRI with Functional Correlations
• good overview
• Springer, US$203
Talairach & Tournoux , 1988. Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain
• just because it’s the standard doesn’t mean it’s good (see also PC vs. Mac, VHS vs. betamax)
• Theime, US$240

Brain Tutor
• Freeware interactive tutorial available from
– http://www.brainvoyager.com/

The Brain Before fMRI (1957)
Polyak, in Savoy, 2001, Acta Psychologica

Sensory Areas
Van Essen

Early Visual Areas

Category-Specific Visual Areas objects faces places
•
Lateral Occipital (LO)
– object-selective
– objects > (faces & scenes)
Malach, 2002, TICS
• Parahippocampal Place Area (PPA)
– place-selective
– places > (objects and faces)
•
Fusiform Face Area (FFA)
– face-selective
– faces > (objects & scenes)

Social Stimuli
Extrastriate Body Area
Data from Downing, 2001, Science
Allison, Puce & McCarthy, 2000, TICS
Data from Astafiev et al., 2005, Nature Neuroscience

Motion-Selective Areas
Watson et al., 1993, Cerebral Cortex
MT+ or V5 motion complex
Sunaert et al., 1999, Exp Brain Res

Parietal Cortex
Simon et al., 2002, Neuron

Attention
Frontal
Eye
Fields
Corbetta et al., 1998, PNAS
Cabeza & Nyberg, 2000, JOCN
Parietal
Eye
Fields

Working Memory
Data: Duncan & Owen, 2000, TICS
Figure: Huettel, Song & McCarthy
• dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (near inferior frontal sulcus, IFS)
• ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (above Sylvian fissure, SF)
• anterior cingulate cortex

Language
Cabeza & Nyberg, 2000, JOCN

Memory Encoding hippocampus
Cabeza & Nyberg, 2000, JOCN

• amygdala
Emotion

Motor Regions
Hand area of Motor Cortex
Supplementary Motor Area
Yousry et al, 1997,
Brain
Premotor Cortex
Picard & Strick, 2001, CONB

Note
• I’m still working on the “areas” slides and they are admittedly on the lame side, especially for temporal, frontal and subcortical areas
• If you have any good images of well-established regions of interest that you would like me to add, please e-mail me: culham@imaging.robarts.ca