Abstract
The cerebral cortex provides the main input to the striatum, constituting the first step in cortico-basal ganglia loops. Decades of careful anatomical tract-tracing research have established the exquisite topography of each cortical region’s projection to the striatum in nonhuman primates. In parallel, neuroimaging research has demonstrated the relationship between cortico-striatal resting-state functional connectivity and specific cognitive, behavioral, psychiatric, and neurological states in humans. However, still unclear is the extent to which functional connectivity recapitulates the specific topographies of cortico-striatal anatomical connectivity. Here, we combined datasets of cortico-striatal anatomical and functional connectivity in macaques to determine the degree of overlap between the two. Across multiple metrics of similarity, we found that anatomical and functional connectivity demonstrated higher correspondence in the frontal and primary somatosensory cortices, with lower correspondence in other brain regions. This suggests that there are many regions in the brain in which cortico-striatal functional connectivity may not be driven by direct anatomical connectivity.
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Data availability
Data are available at https://github.com/srheilbronner/corticostriatal.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Tanya Casta, Maya Wang, and Adriana Cushnie for assistance with data collection.
Funding
We acknowledge funding from R01MH118257, P30DA04872, R01EB031765, P41EB027061, and the Robert and Janice McNair Foundation.
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MEM and SRH designed the study. MEM, AMGM, FAO, DH, J Zhou, J Zimmermann, and SRH collected data. WT, MEM, ZL, AMG, JZ, and SRH analyzed data. J Zimmermann and SRH contributed project funding, administration, and supervision. WT and SRH wrote the first manuscript draft. All authors reviewed and edited the manuscript before submission.
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All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations. Animal experiments were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the University of Minnesota (PHS Approved Animal Welfare Assurance D16-00288).
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Tang, W., Monko, M.E., Liu, Z. et al. Functional vs anatomical cortico-striatal connectivity in the macaque brain. Transl Psychiatry (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-025-03757-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-025-03757-x
