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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on February 10, 2008
Cerebral Cortex 2008 18(10):2374-2381; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn003
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Revealing Modular Architecture of Human Brain Structural Networks by Using Cortical Thickness from MRI

Zhang J. Chen, Yong He, Pedro Rosa-Neto, Jurgen Germann and Alan C. Evans

McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 2B4

Address correspondence to Alan C. Evans, McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Montreal Neurological Institute, Montreal QC Canada H3A 2B4. Email: alan.evans{at}mcgill.ca

Modularity, presumably shaped by evolutionary constraints, underlies the functionality of most complex networks ranged from social to biological networks. However, it remains largely unknown in human cortical networks. In a previous study, we demonstrated a network of correlations of cortical thickness among specific cortical areas and speculated that these correlations reflected an underlying structural connectivity among those brain regions. Here, we further investigated the intrinsic modular architecture of the human brain network derived from cortical thickness measurement. Modules were defined as groups of cortical regions that are connected morphologically to achieve the maximum network modularity. We show that the human cortical network is organized into 6 topological modules that closely overlap known functional domains such as auditory/language, strategic/executive, sensorimotor, visual, and mnemonic processing. The identified structure-based modular architecture may provide new insights into the functionality of cortical regions and connections between structural brain modules. This study provides the first report of modular architecture of the structural network in the human brain using cortical thickness measurements.

Key Words: betweenness centrality • cortical thickness • modularity • morphometry • MRI • network • small world


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