Functional-based parcellation of the mouse prefrontal cortex for network perturbation analysis
Iurii Savvateev,
Christina Grimm,
Marija Markicevic,
Joanes Grandjean,
David Sastre,
Alessandro Gozzi,
Nicole Wenderoth,
Rafael Polania,
Valerio Zerbi
Affiliations
Iurii Savvateev
Neural Control of Movement Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Decision Neuroscience Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Christina Grimm
Neuro-X Institute, School of Engineering (STI), EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
Marija Markicevic
Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
Joanes Grandjean
Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen 6525 AJ, the Netherlands; Department of Medical Imaging, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen 6525 GA, the Netherlands
David Sastre
Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Rovereto, Italy
Alessandro Gozzi
Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Rovereto, Italy
Nicole Wenderoth
Neural Control of Movement Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Rafael Polania
Decision Neuroscience Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Valerio Zerbi
Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; Department of Basic Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; Corresponding author
Summary: The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is a brain region involved in higher-order cognitive processes such as attention, emotional regulation, and social behavior. However, the delineation of distinct subdivisions within the mouse PFC and their contributions to the broader brain network function remain debated. This study utilizes resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) from a cohort of 100 C57BL/6J wild-type mice to derive the functional connectivity (FC)-based parcellation of the mouse PFC with voxel resolution. Our findings reveal clusters that deviate from the established anatomical subdivisions within the cingulate and prelimbic areas while aligning in infralimbic and orbital cortices. Upon the chemogenetic perturbation of one of the clusters, FC perturbations occur only within the functional network linked to the targeted cluster and do not spread to neighboring anatomical areas or functional clusters. We propose FC-based parcellation as a valuable approach for tracking the site of activation and network impact of neurostimulation strategies.
