TY  - JOUR
A1  - Genç, Erhan
A1  - Bergmann, Johanna
A1  - Tong, Frank
A1  - Blake, Randolph
A1  - Singer, Wolf
A1  - Kohler, Axel
T1  - Callosal connections of primary visual cortex predict the spatial spreading of binocular rivalry across the visual hemifields
T2  - Frontiers in human neuroscience
N2  - In binocular rivalry, presentation of different images to the separate eyes leads to conscious perception alternating between the two possible interpretations every few seconds. During perceptual transitions, a stimulus emerging into dominance can spread in a wave-like manner across the visual field. These traveling waves of rivalry dominance have been successfully related to the cortical magnification properties and functional activity of early visual areas, including the primary visual cortex (V1). Curiously however, these traveling waves undergo a delay when passing from one hemifield to another. In the current study, we used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to investigate whether the strength of interhemispheric connections between the left and right visual cortex might be related to the delay of traveling waves across hemifields. We measured the delay in traveling wave times (ΔTWT) in 19 participants and repeated this test 6 weeks later to evaluate the reliability of our behavioral measures. We found large interindividual variability but also good test–retest reliability for individual measures of ΔTWT. Using DTI in connection with fiber tractography, we identified parts of the corpus callosum connecting functionally defined visual areas V1–V3. We found that individual differences in ΔTWT was reliably predicted by the diffusion properties of transcallosal fibers connecting left and right V1, but observed no such effect for neighboring transcallosal visual fibers connecting V2 and V3. Our results demonstrate that the anatomical characteristics of topographically specific transcallosal connections predict the individual delay of interhemispheric traveling waves, providing further evidence that V1 is an important site for neural processes underlying binocular rivalry.
KW  - traveling waves
KW  - interhemispheric integration
KW  - binocular rivalry
KW  - diffusion tensor imaging
KW  - corpus callosum
KW  - primary visual cortex
KW  - radial diffusivity
Y1  - 2011
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/26810
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-268108
SN  - 1662-5161
N1  - Copyright: © 2011 Genç, Bergmann, Tong, Blake, Singer and Kohler. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited.
VL  - 5
IS  - Article 161
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  -