Anatomo-functional correspondence in the voice-selective regions of human prefrontal cortex
Mélina Cordeau,
Ihsane Bichoutar,
David Meunier,
Kep-Kee Loh,
Isaure Michaud,
Olivier Coulon,
Guillaume Auzias,
Pascal Belin
Affiliations
Mélina Cordeau
Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, Aix Marseille Université, UMR 7289 CNRS, Marseille 13005, France; Corresponding author.
Ihsane Bichoutar
Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany
David Meunier
Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, Aix Marseille Université, UMR 7289 CNRS, Marseille 13005, France
Kep-Kee Loh
Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Isaure Michaud
Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, Aix Marseille Université, UMR 7289 CNRS, Marseille 13005, France
Olivier Coulon
Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, Aix Marseille Université, UMR 7289 CNRS, Marseille 13005, France; Institute of Language Communication and the Brain, ILCB, Aix-en-Provence, France
Guillaume Auzias
Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, Aix Marseille Université, UMR 7289 CNRS, Marseille 13005, France
Pascal Belin
Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, Aix Marseille Université, UMR 7289 CNRS, Marseille 13005, France; Psychology Department, Montreal University, C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7, Canada; Institute of Language Communication and the Brain, ILCB, Aix-en-Provence, France
Group level analyses of functional regions involved in voice perception show evidence of 3 sets of bilateral voice-sensitive activations in the human prefrontal cortex, named the anterior, middle and posterior Frontal Voice Areas (FVAs). However, the relationship with the underlying sulcal anatomy, highly variable in this region, is still unknown. We examined the inter-individual variability of the FVAs in conjunction with the sulcal anatomy. To do so, anatomical and functional MRI scans from 74 subjects were analyzed to generate individual contrast maps of the FVAs and relate them to each subject's manually labeled prefrontal sulci. We report two major results. First, the frontal activations for the voice are significantly associated with the sulcal anatomy. Second, this correspondence with the sulcal anatomy at the individual level is a better predictor than coordinates in the MNI space. These findings offer new perspectives for the understanding of anatomical-functional correspondences in this complex cortical region. They also shed light on the importance of considering individual-specific variations in subject's anatomy.
