Human brain mapping: a systematic comparison of parcellation methods for the human cerebral cortex
File(s)human-brain-mapping-v3.pdf (3.67 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The macro-connectome elucidates the pathways through which brain regions are structurally connected or functionally coupled to perform a specific cognitive task. It embodies the notion of representing and understanding all connections within the brain as a network, while the subdivision of the brain into interacting functional units is inherent in its architecture. As a result, the definition of network nodes is one of the most critical steps in connectivity network analysis. Although brain atlases obtained from cytoarchitecture or anatomy have long been used for this task, connectivity-driven methods have arisen only recently, aiming to delineate more homogeneous and functionally coherent regions. This study provides a systematic comparison between anatomical, connectivity-driven and random parcellation methods proposed in the thriving field of brain parcellation. Using resting-state functional MRI data from the Human Connectome Project and a plethora of quantitative evaluation techniques investigated in the literature, we evaluate 10 subject-level and 24 groupwise parcellation methods at different resolutions. We assess the accuracy of parcellations from four different aspects: (1) reproducibility across different acquisitions and groups, (2) fidelity to the underlying connectivity data, (3) agreement with fMRI task activation, myelin maps, and cytoarchitectural areas, and (4) network analysis. This extensive evaluation of different parcellations generated at the subject and group level highlights the strengths and shortcomings of the various methods and aims to provide a guideline for the choice of parcellation technique and resolution according to the task at hand. The results obtained in this study suggest that there is no optimal method able to address all the challenges faced in this endeavour simultaneously.
Date Issued
2017-04-13
Date Acceptance
2017-04-05
Citation
Neuroimage, 2017, 170, pp.5-30
ISSN
1095-9572
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
5
End Page
30
Journal / Book Title
Neuroimage
Volume
170
Copyright Statement
© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Sponsor
Commission of the European Communities
Identifier
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28412442
PII: S1053-8119(17)30302-6
Grant Number
319456
Subjects
Brain parcellation
Cerebral cortex
Functional neuroimaging
Model selection
Network analysis
Resting-state functional MRI
11 Medical And Health Sciences
17 Psychology And Cognitive Sciences
Neurology & Neurosurgery
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States