Understanding brain organisation in the face of functional heterogeneity and functional multiplicity

Abstract

Understanding the fundamental organisation of the brain in terms of functional specialisation and integration is one of the principal aims of imaging neuroscience. Many investigations into the functional organisation of the brain are predicated on parcellating the brain into patches of assumed piece-wise constant connectivity. There are, however, many brain areas where the assumption of piece-wise constant organisation is violated. Connectivity, and by extension function, often varies continuously across the grey matter according to multiple overlapping modes of change. The organisation is governed by functional heterogeneity (continuous change) as well as functional multiplicity (overlapping modes). Functional heterogeneity and multiplicity have important implications for how we can and should analyse our data and how we ought to interpret the results, both in the classical context of parcellated modes and under models that allow for overlapping modes of continuous change. The goal of this opinion paper is to raise awareness of these issues and highlight recent methodological developments toward accounting for these important fundamental features of brain organisation.