Study: Cortical-subcortical functional networks

FULL TITLE:
Mapping the human brain's cortical-subcortical functional network organization

SPECIES:
Human

DESCRIPTION:
Additional files, code, and documentation can be found at https://github.com/ColeLab/ColeAnticevicNetPartition.

ABSTRACT:
Understanding complex systems such as the human brain requires characterization of the system's architecture across multiple levels of organization - from neurons, to local circuits, to brain regions, and ultimately large-scale brain networks. Here we focus on characterizing the human brain's large-scale network organization, as it provides an overall framework for the organization of all other levels. We developed a highly principled approach to identify cortical network communities at the level of functional systems, calibrating our community detection algorithm using extremely well-established sensory and motor systems as guides. Building on previous network partitions, we replicated and expanded upon well-known and recently-identified networks, including several higher-order cognitive networks such as a left-lateralized language network. We expanded these cortical networks to subcortex, revealing 358 highly-organized subcortical parcels that take part in forming whole-brain functional networks. Notably, the identified subcortical parcels are similar in number to a recent estimate of the number of cortical parcels (360). This whole-brain network atlas - released as an open resource for the neuroscience community - places all brain structures across both cortex and subcortex into a single large-scale functional framework, with the potential to facilitate a variety of studies investigating large-scale functional networks in health and disease.

PUBLICATION:
NeuroImage - DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.10.006 - PMID: 30291974

AUTHORS:
  • Jie Lisa Ji
  • Marjolein Spronk
  • Kaustubh Kulkarni
  • Grega Repovš
  • Alan Anticevic
  • Michael W Cole
INSTITUTIONS:
  • Department of Psychology, University of Ljubljana, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA
  • Yale University