The strength of weak connections in the macaque cortico-cortical network
The strength of weak connections in the macaque cortico-cortical network
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DOI：
10.1007/s00429-014-0836-3
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发表时间：
2015-09-01
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
Margulies, Daniel S.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Goulas, Alexandros;Schaefer, Alexander;Margulies, Daniel S.
对哺乳动物皮质-皮质网络的研究揭示了关键的拓扑特征及其在健康和患病大脑功能中的作用。社会和生物网络的最新研究结果指出了弱连接在网络一致性和网络隔离部分信息调解中的重要作用。在当前的研究中，受到这些发现和与社交网络相关的拟议架构的启发，我们通过采用神经束追踪数据集来检查猕猴皮质-皮质网络中弱连接的结构。我们证明，皮质-皮质连接作为一个整体，以及隔离社区之间的连接的大脑区域，符合所谓的弱关系强度假说所建议的架构。然而，我们发现这些连接的布线相对于上述架构不是最佳的。这种配置并不归因于与已知限制大脑布线的因素的权衡，即，布线成本和效率。最后，弱连接，而不是强连接，似乎对网络凝聚力很重要。我们的研究结果与拓扑属性的强度皮质-皮质连接，突出的皮质-皮质结构网络中的弱连接的突出作用，并查明其潜在的功能意义。这些发现表明，某些神经影像学研究，尽管方法上的挑战，应该明确考虑到他们，而不是把他们视为微不足道。
Examination of the cortico-cortical network of mammals has unraveled key topological features and their role in the function of the healthy and diseased brain. Recent findings from social and biological networks pinpoint the significant role of weak connections in network coherence and mediation of information from segregated parts of the network. In the current study, inspired by such findings and proposed architectures pertaining to social networks, we examine the structure of weak connections in the macaque cortico-cortical network by employing a tract-tracing dataset. We demonstrate that the cortico-cortical connections as a whole, as well as connections between segregated communities of brain areas, comply with the architecture suggested by the so-called strength-of-weak-ties hypothesis. However, we find that the wiring of these connections is not optimal with respect to the aforementioned architecture. This configuration is not attributable to a trade-off with factors known to constrain brain wiring, i.e., wiring cost and efficiency. Lastly, weak connections, but not strong ones, appear important for network cohesion. Our findings relate a topological property to the strength of cortico-cortical connections, highlight the prominent role of weak connections in the cortico-cortical structural network and pinpoint their potential functional significance. These findings suggest that certain neuroimaging studies, despite methodological challenges, should explicitly take them into account and not treat them as negligible.