Laminar profile of intracortical resting-state functional connectivity

Abstract

This study investigates the laminar interconnections in the rat primary visual cortex (V1) and visualizes layer specific neuroanatomy using resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI) and manganese-enhanced MRI (MEMRI), respectively. The rsfMRI results indicated that the V1 layers II/III and layers V/VI are more functionally connected during resting-state using seed-based and independent component analyses, which could be associated with the intracortical processing in V1 layers II, III, V and VI during visual stimulation. We also demonstrated layer specific manganese enhancement in the rat V1, revealing the neuroanatomical structure. The laminar rsfMRI connectivity may provide further insights in intracortical and intrahemispheric neural communication.