TY  - JOUR
AU  - Auer, Hans
AU  - Cabalo, Donna Gift
AU  - Rodríguez-Cruces, Raúl
AU  - Benkarim, Oualid
AU  - Paquola, Casey
AU  - DeKraker, Jordan
AU  - Wang, Yezhou
AU  - Valk, Sofie Louise
AU  - Bernhardt, Boris C
AU  - Royer, Jessica
TI  - From histology to macroscale function in the human amygdala
JO  - eLife
VL  - 13
SN  - 2050-084X
CY  - Cambridge
PB  - eLife Sciences Publications
M1  - FZJ-2025-05184
SP  - RP101950
PY  - 2025
AB  - The amygdala is a subcortical region in the mesiotemporal lobe that plays a key role in emotional and sensory functions. Conventional neuroimaging experiments treat this structure as a single, uniform entity, but there is ample histological evidence for subregional heterogeneity in microstructure and function. The current study characterized subregional structure-function coupling in the human amygdala, integrating post-mortem histology and in vivo MRI at ultra-high fields. Core to our work was a novel neuroinformatics approach that leveraged multiscale texture analysis as well as non-linear dimensionality reduction techniques to identify salient dimensions of microstructural variation in a 3D post-mortem histological reconstruction of the human amygdala. We observed two axes of subregional variation in this region, describing inferior-superior as well as mediolateral trends in microstructural differentiation that in part recapitulated established atlases of amygdala subnuclei. Translating our approach to in vivo MRI data acquired at 7 Tesla, we could demonstrate the generalizability of these spatial trends across 10 healthy adults. We then cross-referenced microstructural axes with functional blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal analysis obtained during task-free conditions, and revealed a close association of structural axes with macroscale functional network embedding, notably the temporo-limbic, default mode, and sensory-motor networks. Our novel multiscale approach consolidates descriptions of amygdala anatomy and function obtained from histological and in vivo imaging techniques.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
DO  - DOI:10.7554/eLife.101950.3
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/1049092
ER  -