Small-world anatomical networks in the human brain revealed by cortical thickness from MRI
Small-world anatomical networks in the human brain revealed by cortical thickness from MRI
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DOI：
10.1093/cercor/bhl149
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发表时间：
2007-10-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Evans, Alan C.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
He, Yong;Chen, Zhang J.;Evans, Alan C.
神经科学中的一个重要问题是复杂脑网络的底层结构的表征。然而，人们对人脑中的解剖连接网络知之甚少。在这里，我们研究了大规模的解剖连接模式的人类大脑皮层皮质厚度测量磁共振图像。如果两个区域在皮质厚度上显示出统计学上显著的相关性，则认为它们在解剖学上是相连的，我们使用来自国际脑映射联盟数据库的124个大脑构建了这种连接的网络。显着的短期和长期的连接被发现在两个半球内和半球间的地区，其中许多是一致的，与已知的神经解剖学途径测量人体扩散成像。更重要的是，我们发现人脑解剖网络具有强大的小世界特性，具有内聚的邻域和区域之间的短平均距离，这些区域对相关阈值的选择不敏感。此外，我们还发现，该网络和在给定解剖距离下找到2个区域之间连接的概率都具有指数截断幂律分布。我们的研究结果证明了人类大脑中解剖网络的基本组织原则与以前的功能网络研究相兼容，这为功能性大脑状态如何起源于其结构基础提供了重要的启示。据我们所知，这项研究提供了第一份报告的小世界属性和程度分布的解剖网络在人脑中使用皮层厚度测量。
An important issue in neuroscience is the characterization for the underlying architectures of complex brain networks. However, little is known about the network of anatomical connections in the human brain. Here, we investigated large-scale anatomical connection patterns of the human cerebral cortex using cortical thickness measurements from magnetic resonance images. Two areas were considered anatomically connected if they showed statistically significant correlations in cortical thickness and we constructed the network of such connections using 124 brains from the International Consortium for Brain Mapping database. Significant short- and long-range connections were found in both intra- and interhemispheric regions, many of which were consistent with known neuroanatomical pathways measured by human diffusion imaging. More importantly, we showed that the human brain anatomical network had robust small-world properties with cohesive neighborhoods and short mean distances between regions that were insensitive to the selection of correlation thresholds. Additionally, we also found that this network and the probability of finding a connection between 2 regions for a given anatomical distance had both exponentially truncated power-law distributions. Our results demonstrated the basic organizational principles for the anatomical network in the human brain compatible with previous functional networks studies, which provides important implications of how functional brain states originate from their structural underpinnings. To our knowledge, this study provides the first report of small-world properties and degree distribution of anatomical networks in the human brain using cortical thickness measurements.