Identification of Abnormal Cortical 3-Hinge Folding Patterns on Autism Spectral Brains

Abstract

Cortical folding has been demonstrated to be correlated with brain connective diagrams and functions. Identifying meaningful cortical folding patterns and landmarks could be valuable for understanding the relation between brain structure and function, the mechanism of brain organization. It also facilitates brain disease studies such as autism spectral disease (ASD), which in turn provides valuable clues to relate the abnormal folding morphology to abnormal brain function. Recently, a novel cortical folding pattern was identified, which is the conjunction of multiple gyri, termed as a gyral hinge. The uniqueness and importance of such a pattern lie in its maximal cortical thickness, axon density and functional complexity. However, the morphology of this pattern is not explicitly studied and related to brain structure and function on either healthy or diseased brains. In this study, we conduct a comparative MRI study between control group and ASD group in their gyral hinge morphology. The identified difference in morphology and spatial distribution is associated with the reported functional and cognitive differences. Our results demonstrate that gyral hinges could be related to brain functions on disease brains and used as potential predictors.