Correspondence between structure and function in the human brain at rest - PubMed (original) (raw)

Correspondence between structure and function in the human brain at rest

Judith M Segall et al. Front Neuroinform. 2012.

Abstract

To further understanding of basic and complex cognitive functions, previous connectome research has identified functional and structural connections of the human brain. Functional connectivity is often measured by using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and is generally interpreted as an indirect measure of neuronal activity. Gray matter (GM) primarily consists of neuronal and glia cell bodies; therefore, it is surprising that the majority of connectome research has excluded GM measures. Therefore, we propose that by exploring where GM corresponds to function would aid in the understanding of both structural and functional connectivity and in turn the human connectome. A cohort of 603 healthy participants underwent structural and functional scanning on the same 3 T scanner at the Mind Research Network. To investigate the spatial correspondence between structure and function, spatial independent component analysis (ICA) was applied separately to both GM density (GMD) maps and to rs-fMRI data. ICA of GM delineates structural components based on the covariation of GMD regions among subjects. For the rs-fMRI data, ICA identified spatial patterns with common temporal features. These decomposed structural and functional components were then compared by spatial correlation. Basal ganglia components exhibited the highest structural to resting-state functional spatial correlation (r = 0.59). Cortical components generally show correspondence between a single structural component and several resting-state functional components. We also studied relationships between the weights of different structural components and identified the precuneus as a hub in GMD structural network correlations. In addition, we analyzed relationships between component weights, age, and gender; concluding that age has a significant effect on structural components.

Keywords: functional; gray matter density; independent component analysis; networks; resting-state; source-based morphometry; structural.

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Figures

FIGURE 1

Schematic of preprocessing and analyses for both structural GMD images and rs-functional images.

FIGURE 2

The structural (sMRI) components (red) and corresponding rs-fMRI components (blue). The spatial correlation between component pairs is indicated adjacent to the functional component number. Both sMRI and fMRI aggregate components were converted to _z_-scores and thresholded at Z > 2. Structural components are displayed at the slices with peak activation, indicated as (x, y, z) coordinates in MNI space. When structural components are paired with a single functional component, the functional component is displayed at the same slices. If a structural component corresponds to several fMRI components, functional components may be displayed at different coordinates that best represent their activation.

FIGURE 3

FIGURE 4

FIGURE 5

(A) Structural components correlated to the log(age) for the 10 selected s-IC. Dark gray bar corresponds to s-IC17. In general, structural components are negatively correlated with age. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are reported. (B) Correlation of the age (years) and loading parameter for all 603 subjects using s-IC17, which is primarily comprised of the precuneus, as an example. Where r = -0.56.

FIGURE 6

(A) Structural network correlations (SNC) of the 10 selected structural components. The top half of the matrix is without age adjustment (original) and the bottom half is after age adjustment. (B) An example of the effect of adjusting for age, where the adjustment does not remove the significant correlation between the components for s-IC73 and s-IC17. (C) An example of the effect of adjusting for age, where the adjustment does remove the significant correlation between the components for s-IC73 and s-IC5.

FIGURE 7

Structural network correlations. The SNC results for component pairs that are r < 0.4. The edges in red refer to components pairs that survived age adjustment. The correlation coefficient values are adjacent to the edges.

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Correspondence between structure and function in the human brain at rest - PubMed (original) (raw)