Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior
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Despite electrostimulation studies of the white matter pathways, supporting the role of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF) in semantic processing, little is known about the precise anatomical course of this fascicle, especially regarding its exact cortical terminations. Here, in the lights of these new functional data, we dissected 14 post-mortem human hemispheres using the Klingler fiber dissection technique, to study the IFOF fibers and to identify their actual cortical terminations in the parietal, occipital and temporal lobes. ⋯ Thus, our results are in line with the hypothesis of the functional role of the IFOF in the semantic system, by showing that it is mainly connected with two areas involved in semantics: the occipital associative extrastriate cortex and the temporo-basal region. Further combined anatomical (dissection and Diffusion Tensor Imaging) and functional (intraoperative subcortical stimulation) studies are needed, to clarify the exact participation of each IFOF subcomponent in semantic processing.