ReviewBrain : a journal of neurology2025
The inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus: bridging phylogeny, ontogeny and functional anatomy.
Review in Brain : a journal of neurology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Beyond motor: clinical manifestations of right hemisphere gliomas - a systematic review.Journal of neuro-oncology · 2026Pooled it
- Associations of Cortical and Subcortical White Matter Morphometric Abnormalities With Clinical and Genetic Findings inNeurology. Genetics · 2026Article
- Structural and functional anatomy of the superior longitudinal fasciculus: a historical and contemporary narrative review.Anatomical science international · 2026Review
- State-Specific Segmental Abnormalities of White Matter Structure and Function in Pediatric Bipolar Disorders.Bipolar disorders · 2026Article
- Article
- Utility and limitations of cortico-cortical evoked potentials in pediatric resective epilepsy surgery: illustrative case.Journal of neurosurgery. Case lessons · 2026Article
- Article
- Identifying pre-treatment risk factors for cancer-related cognitive decline in patients with breast cancer.Breast (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2026Article
- Heritable and experience-dependent cortical traits of reading ability.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Article
- Electrophysiological features of signals recorded from white matter.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Tract-based χ-separation imaging differentiates multiple sclerosis from neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder by mapping iron and myelin signatures.BMC medical imaging · 2026Article
- Frontal cortex organization supporting audiovisual processing during naturalistic viewing.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Intraoperative functional brain mapping for glioma surgery: a comprehensive review of the University of California San Francisco mapping protocol.Journal of neuro-oncology · 2026Review
- White matter structure-function coupling in neonatal brain and its association with Autism-related traits in early childhood.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Multimodal Graphical Network Analysis of Small-for-Gestational-Age in Preterm Infants: Integrating Neonatal Brain Volume, Structural Connectivity, and Early Neurodevelopmental Outcome.Annals of biomedical engineering · 2026Article
- Major Lifetime Discrimination Exposure Accelerates Brain Microstructural Aging: Diffusion MRI Evidence From MIDUS.Biopsychosocial science and medicine · 2026Article
- Longitudinal visualization tools for advanced characterization of multiple sclerosis lesions using diffusion MRI and magnetization transfer imaging metrics.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Neuroradiological Insights into Visual Mental Imagery: Structural and Functional Imaging of Ventral and Dorsal Streams.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Elucidating biopsychosocial mechanisms in migraine: an integrative analytics approach combining genetics, neuroimaging, and machine learning.The journal of headache and pain · 2026Article
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3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The inferior-fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF) is a long-range white matter tract that connects the prefrontal cortex with parietal, posterior temporal and occipital cortices. First identified in the 19th century through the pioneering studies of Mayo and Meynert using blunt dissection, its anatomy and function remain contentious topics. Structurally, its projections are well documented in human blunt dissection and tractography literature, yet its existence has been questioned by tract-tracing studies in macaques. Functionally, while traditional results from direct white matter stimulation during awake surgery suggested a contribution to language, recent evidence from stimulation and lesion data may indicate a broader role in executive control, extending to attention, motor cognition, memory, reading, emotion recognition and theory of mind. This review begins by examining anatomical evidence suggesting that the IFOF evolved in non-human primates to connect temporal and occipital cortices to prefrontal regions involved in context-dependent selection of visual features for action. We then integrate developmental, electrophysiological, functional and anatomical evidence for the human IFOF to propose it has a similar role in manipulation of visual features in our species-particularly when inhibition of overriding but task-irrelevant stimuli is required to prioritize a second, task-relevant stimulus. Next, we introduce a graded model in which dorsal (orbitofrontal, superior and middle frontal to precuneal, angular and supero-occipital projections) and ventral (inferior frontal to posterotemporal, basal temporal and infero-occipital) projections of the IFOF support perceptual or conceptual control of visual representations for action, respectively. Leveraging this model, we address controversies in the current literature regarding language, motor cognition, attention and emotion under the unifying view of cognitive control. Finally, we discuss surgical implications for this model and its impact on predicting and preventing neurological deficits in neurosurgery.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.