Microstructural organization of human insula is linked to its macrofunctional circuitry and predicts cognitive control
Vinod Menon,
Guillermo Gallardo,
Mark A Pinsk,
Van-Dang Nguyen,
Jing-Rebecca Li,
Weidong Cai,
Demian Wassermann
Affiliations
Vinod Menon
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Stanford, United States; Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Stanford, United States; Stanford Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Stanford, United States
Athena, Inria Sophia Antipolis, Université Côte d’Azur, Sophia Antipolis, France; Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Mark A Pinsk
Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
Van-Dang Nguyen
Department of Computational Science and Technology Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
Jing-Rebecca Li
Defi, Inria Saclay Île-de-France, École Polytechnique Université Paris Sud, Palaiseau, France
The human insular cortex is a heterogeneous brain structure which plays an integrative role in guiding behavior. The cytoarchitectonic organization of the human insula has been investigated over the last century using postmortem brains but there has been little progress in noninvasive in vivo mapping of its microstructure and large-scale functional circuitry. Quantitative modeling of multi-shell diffusion MRI data from 413 participants revealed that human insula microstructure differs significantly across subdivisions that serve distinct cognitive and affective functions. Insular microstructural organization was mirrored in its functionally interconnected circuits with the anterior cingulate cortex that anchors the salience network, a system important for adaptive switching of cognitive control systems. Furthermore, insular microstructural features, confirmed in Macaca mulatta, were linked to behavior and predicted individual differences in cognitive control ability. Our findings open new possibilities for probing psychiatric and neurological disorders impacted by insular cortex dysfunction, including autism, schizophrenia, and fronto-temporal dementia.
