Abstract
MRI, enabling in vivo analysis of cortical morphology, offers a powerful tool in the assessment of brain development and pathology. One of the most ubiquitous measures used—the thickness of the cortex—shows abnormalities in a number of diseases and conditions, but the functional and biological correlates of such alterations are unclear.If the functional connotations of structural MRI measures are to be understood, we must strive to clarify the relationship between measures such as cortical thickness and their cytoarchitectural determinants. We therefore sought to determine whether patterns of cortical thickness mirror a key motif of the cortex, specifically its structural hierarchical organisation. We delineated three sensory hierarchies (visual, somatosensory and auditory) in two species—macaque and human—and explored whether cortical thickness was correlated with specific cytoarchitectural characteristics. Importantly, we controlled for cortical folding which impacts upon thickness and may obscure regional differences.Our results suggest that an easily measurable macroscopic brain parameter, namely, cortical thickness, is systematically related to cytoarchitecture and to the structural hierarchical organisation of the cortex. We argue that the measurement of cortical thickness gradients may become an important way to develop our understanding of brain structure–function relationships. The identification of alterations in such gradients may complement the observation of regionally localised cortical thickness changes in our understanding of normal development and neuropsychiatric illnesses.
Highlights
Elegant work has established an indisputable general relationship between cortical morphology, cytoarchitecture and function (Broca, 1861; Fischl et al, 2008), the precise nature of this relationship is unclear
Our findings offer a new framework for the interpreting cortical thickness measured using structural MRI
Cortical thickness gradients are significantly correlated with structural hierarchical level of sensory processing hierarchies in macaque and human subjects
Summary
Elegant work has established an indisputable general relationship between cortical morphology, cytoarchitecture and function (Broca, 1861; Fischl et al, 2008), the precise nature of this relationship is unclear. There is a considerable degree of inter-individual variability in the large-scale structural features of the brain, which adds further ambiguity to regional analysis of both structure and function (Rajkowska and Goldman-Rakic, 1995; Amunts et al, 2007). The goal of the current study was to determine whether one widely used morphological measure—cortical thickness—varies across the cortex in a manner predicted by other cytoarchitectural and functional characteristics. We used existing knowledge about the cellular, laminar and hodological patterns within the cortex to determine whether cortical thickness measures followed a corresponding pattern. Such an observation would lend weight to the proposition that macroscopic. Individual differences in cortical thickness measures would offer a possible interpretational framework for the neural bases of psychiatric disorders
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