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Dear Helmut,

Thank you so very much for the detailed explanation, it's really helpful.
One more question, I tried using SPM anatomy toolbox, however, there is something wrong. I'm using the latest version of both SPM and Anatomy toolboxes but "Create anatomical ROIs" part is not working (please find attached a view of the toolbox).
I would be more than grateful if you could help me again.

Many thanks,
Mahsa



On Monday, May 4, 2015 6:36 PM, H. Nebl <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


Yes, but not just the AAL. Most of the atlases are based on anatomy / gyri and sulci. "Prefrontal" as such is not a precise term, there's not even absolute consensus on posterior boundaries of the prefrontal cortex. Primary motor cortex is not prefrontal, but it's already quite difficult to precisely define the pre-motor cortex in humans, as most of the mapping studies have been conducted in monkeys. In general, the ventral parts of the superior, middle, inferior frontal gyri are pre-motor, but the anatomical labels often reflect just the gyri as a whole, thus e.g. covering non-motor, prefrontal regions and motor-related, non-prefrontal regions.

Concerning the medial prefrontal cortex, frequently there's some distinction between a more dorsal (DMPFC) and a more ventral part (VMPFC), with the (arbitrary) boundary lying in-plane with the ventral end of the genu, a part of the corpus callosum. Depending on definition/purpose the orbitofrontal parts would be part of the VMPFC or a separate region, and depending on definition/purpose one might want to further differentiate between orbitofrontal regions and the straight gyrus (also gyrus rectus). If you are interested in concepts and definitions you might want to look at papers by Michael Petrides and his workgroup, he is very famous for his work on the frontal lobe.

Turning back to the atlases and the MPFC,
- for AAL, you would combine the superior frontal medial label (23 and 24), more or less reflecting a DMPFC, and the frontal medial orbital label (25 and 26), more or less a VMPFC, plus maybe the gyrus rectus (27 and 28)
- the LPBA40 does not differentiate between dorsal and medial subregions of the superior frontal gyrus (coded as 21 and 22), thus you would have to restrict these labels to a medial part. The superior frontal gyrus labels also include the SMA, thus you might additionally want to remove the posterior part. Depending on purpose you might add the gyrus rectus (33 and 34).
- the Hammersmith n30r83 does not differentiate between dorsal and medial subregions of the superior frontal gyrus (coded as 58 and 59), and also includes the SMA. Probably you would want to add the subgenual frontal cortex (76 and 77), the subcallosal area (78 and 79) and the pre-subgenual frontal cortex (80, 81), possibly also the gyrus rectus/straight gyrus (52 and 53) and (medial parts of) the medial orbital gyrus (68 and 69).

However, as you probably have functional hypotheses (e.g. medial frontal due to default mode network), I would suggest to also go with functionally defined ROIs except if you're really interested in structure. Functional regions often extend across anatomical labels and/or several different functional regions are located within the same structural label (this disadvantage also holds for Brodmann areas), thus structure (and cytoarchitectonics) can be misleading. For parietal lobe several distinctive resting state networks have been reported, including the executive control network (together with DLPFC), a visuospatial network (IPS and FEF), default mode networks (including TPJ). Relying on those labels might be more promising than some anatomical labels.

Best,

Helmut