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Human primary auditory cortex (PAC) is functionally organized in a tonotopic manner. Past studies have used neuroimaging to characterize tonotopic organization in PAC and found similar organization as that described in mammals. In contrast to what is known about PAC in primates and nonprimates, in humans, the structural connectivity within PAC has not been defined. In this study, stroboscopic event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was utilized to reveal mirror symmetric tonotopic organization consisting of a high-low-high frequency gradient in PAC. Furthermore, diffusion tensor tractography and probabilistic mapping was used to study projection patterns within tonotopic areas. Based on earlier physiological and histological work in nonhuman PAC, we hypothesized the existence of cross-field isofrequency (homotopic) and within-field non-isofrequency (heterotopic)-specific axonal projections in human PAC. The presence of both projections types was found in all subjects. Specifically, the number of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) reconstructed fibers projecting between high- and low-frequency regions was greater than those fibers projecting between 2 high-frequency areas, the latter of which are located in distinct auditory fields. The fMRI and DTI results indicate that functional and structural properties within early stages of the auditory processing stream are preserved across multiple mammalian species at distinct evolutionary levels.

Studies in non-human primates have shown that medial premotor projections to the striatum are characterized as a set of distinct circuits conveying different type of information. This study assesses the anatomical projections from the supplementary motor area (SMA), pre-SMA and motor cortex (MC) to the human striatum using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) axonal tracking. Eight right-handed volunteers were studied at 1.5 T using DTI axonal tracking. A connectivity matrix was computed, which tested for connections between cortical areas (MC, SMA and pre-SMA) and subcortical areas (posterior, middle and anterior putamen and the head of the caudate nucleus) in each hemisphere. Pre-SMA projections to the striatum were located rostral to SMA projections to the striatum. The SMA and the MC were similarly connected to the posterior and middle putamen and not to the anterior striatum. These data show that the MC and SMA have connections with similar parts of the sensorimotor compartment of the human striatum, whereas the pre-SMA sends connections to more rostral parts of the striatum, including the associative compartment.