The cerebral cortex is characterized by convex and concave neural folding structures of gyri and sulci. Recently, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) studies have shown that the fibers connected to gyri are significantly denser, than those connected to sulci. That is, in human cortices, a dominant fraction of fibers are connected to gyri. Inspired by this result, the objective of this project is to dissect the functional interactions between gyri and sulci and establish a fundamental theoretic framework that can consistently explain the intrinsic relationships amongst cortical fold patterns, structural connections, and functional interactions between gyri and sulci. By using resting state fMRI, task-based fMRI and natural stimulus fMRI datasets, this project will investigate the hypothesis that functional interaction strength is strong between gyral-gyral regions, moderate between gyral-sulcal regions, and weak between sulcal-sulcal regions. Altogether, these studies aim to establish a novel gyri-centric representation of functional cortical architecture.
The discovery and representation of common functional architecture of gyri and sulci will fundamentally advance scientific understanding of the brain. The dissection and differentiation of functional roles of cortical gyri and sulci will transform numerous neuroimaging applications that rely on accurate definition and localization of structural substrates for structural, connectivity and functional brain mappings. A variety of basic brain science research and neural engineering studies will significantly benefit from the offered novel insights of the relationships between cortical structure and function. This project will produce both theoretic understanding and concrete representation of functional architectures of gyri and sulci, which will lay down solid foundations to study numerous brain disorders in the future. The novel educational approaches and materials generated from this project will contribute to cultivate the next generation of scientists and engineers who are able to face real-world problems.
