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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on April 20, 2006
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhk004
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Article

White Matter Pathway Asymmetry Underlies Functional Lateralization

Thomas R. Barrick 1 *, I. Nigel Lawes 2, Clare E. Mackay 3, and Chris A. Clark 1

1 Centre for Clinical Neuroscience, Division of Cardiac and Vascular Sciences, St George's University of London, Cranmer Terrace, London SW17 0RE, UK
2 Department of Basic Medical Sciences, St George's University of London, Cranmer Terrace, London SW17 0RE, UK
3 University Department of Psychiatry and Prince of Wales International Centre, Warneford Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 7JX, UK

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Thomas R. Barrick, E-mail: tbarrick{at}sgul.ac.uk


  Abstract

Structural and functional asymmetry of the human brain has been well documented using techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, asymmetry of underlying white matter connections is less well understood. We applied an MRI technique known as diffusion tensor tractography to reveal the morphology of the white matter in vivo by mapping directions of maximum water diffusion in brain tissue. White matter pathway asymmetry was investigated in a normalized image data set of 30 right-handed young healthy individuals. We identified, for the first time, a rightwardly asymmetric pathway connecting the posterior temporal lobe to the superior parietal lobule. This pathway may be related to auditory spatial attention and working memory for which there is evidence for a rightward laterality from functional imaging studies. Additional leftward asymmetries connecting the parietal and frontal lobes to the temporal lobe may be more closely related to laterality of language.

Keywords: asymmetry; brain; diffusion tensor tractography; functional lateralization; MRI.
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