Chapter 15 - Holistic atlases of functional networks and interactions (HAFNI)

Abstract

After decades of active research using in vivo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), there has been numerous evidence that human brain functions emerge from and are realized by the interaction of multiple concurrent neural networks. Due to the lack of effective computational brain mapping approaches and the limitation of functional neuroimaging data quality/quantity, it is still challenging to faithfully and robustly reconstruct concurrent functional networks from fMRI data and to quantitatively investigate their interactions at network level. Therefore it is largely unknown how multiple interacting functional networks spatially overlap and jointly perform brain functions. In response, by developing innovative sparse representation of whole-brain fMRI signals, we found that many robust and reproducible functional networks, including both task-evoked and intrinsic connectivity networks, are simultaneously activated and distributed in distant neuroanatomic regions with substantially spatial overlaps, thus forming an initial collection of holistic atlases of functional networks and interactions (HAFNI).