Cortical Fibers

For studying the course of nerve fibers into the cortex, a resolution at the microscopic level is needed, much higher than currently available in MRI settings. We thus use microscopic fiber maps, which are generated based on 3D polarized light imaging (Working Group Fibre Architecture: Polarized Light Imaging). This allows investigation of fiber distributions in cortical layers as well as at the transition from the white matter into the cortex. We are particularly interested in the starting and end points, respectively, of larger and smaller fiber bundles, e.g. U-fibers, as well as in the parcellation of the parietal and occipital cortices into distinct areas based on the distribution of tangentially and radially oriented fibers (collaboration with working group Receptors).