Short association fibre tractography predicts retinotopy in higher visual areas from retinotopy in lower visual areas

Motivation: High spatial resolution diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) tractography may enable mapping of cortical topological structure based on white matter connectivity organisation as an additional method to functional MRI techniques. Goal(s): We investigated whether retinotopic mapping of primary visual cortex (V1) combined with short association fibres tractography could predict retinotopic organisation in the higher visual areas (V2, V3). Approach: We used sub-millimetre resolution DWI tractography combined with functional retinotopic mapping in a group of participants in vivo. Results: Our results demonstrated high accuracy and precision, especially at group level. Prediction was less reliable in the anatomical direction with the most pronounced gyral bias effects. Impact: Sub-millimetre resolution diffusion weighted imaging tractography enabled mapping of cortical topology by exploiting the topological structure of underlying short association fibre connections, opening the door to applications exploring brain reorganisation in response to injury or pathology from a new perspective.