A gradient of hemisphere-specific dorsal to ventral processing routes in parieto-premotor networks

Networks in the parietal and premotor cortices enable essential human abilities regarding motor processing, including attention and tool use. Even though our knowledge on its topography has steadily increased, a detailed picture of hemisphere-specific integrating pathways is still lacking. With the help of multi-shell diffusion magnetic resonance imaging, probabilistic tractography and graph theory analysis, we investigated connectivity patterns between frontal premotor and posterior parietal brain areas in healthy individuals. With a two-stage node characterization approach, we defined the network role of precisely mapped cortical regions from the Julich-Brain atlas. We found evidence for a third, left-sided medio-dorsal sub-pathway in a successively graded dorsal stream, referencing more specialized motor processing on the left. Supplementary motor areas had strongly lateralized connectivity to either left dorsal or right ventral parietal domains, representing an action-attention dichotomy between hemispheres. Left sulcal parietal regions primarily coupled with areas 44 a 44 nd 45, mirrored by the inferior frontal junction on the right, a structural lateralization we termed as “Broca’s-IFJ switch”. We were able to deepen knowledge on gyral and sulcal pathways as well as domain-specific contributions in parieto-premotor networks. Our study sheds new light on the complex lateralization of cortical routes for motor activity in the human brain.