Background and aim: The brain’s vasculature is critical for sustaining neural function and shapes in vivo neuroimaging signals such as BOLD fMRI. The microvasculature, including capillaries and arterioles, is closely tied to sites of neural activation, while macrovasculature supplies and drains broader regions. Classical ink-injection studies suffered from limited penetration into finer...
In the computational modeling of the neural correlates of consciousness, many efforts have focused on the whole-brain scale [1]. Although this powerful approach successfully captures global dynamics, it may overlook potentially insightful details at the population and microcircuit levels. An alternative strategy is to concentrate on a limited subset of nodes considered most essential and to...
Introduction: Multimodal image co-registration between magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and histology is a critical yet challenging task in neuroscience research. Understanding brain microstructure requires combining MRI, which provides non-invasive and versatile brain information at spatial resolutions ranging from 70 to 100 micrometers, with histology, which delivers subcellular detail...
Dense mapping of cortical connectivity at the voxel/vertex level can provide a more precise view of connectomic organization compared to the conventional approach of studying connectivity at the level of brain areas. This approach has been previously applied to resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC), providing important insights into the organization of cortical networks (Yeo et al.,...
The reward network plays a key role in motivation and decision-making and is known to be disrupted in numerous psychiatric conditions. Despite its functional importance, a comprehensive microstructural characterization of this network, including both its interacting cortical and subcortical components, remains sparse. Recent research, including findings from humans and non-human primates,...
Mental rotation (MR) is a crucial process that underlies our ability to spatially navigate and recognize
objects despite viewing them from varying distances and viewpoints. MR competence is linked to
superior sport and academic performance, and deficits can impact daily activities like driving. Previous
work using single-pulse TMS has confirmed the causal involvement of left and right...
Introduction
Extracting meaningful features from histological images is a fundamental step to automate tissue analysis and classification. This feature extraction can be approached through nonlinear methods that can preserve complex biological structural information, or through linear methods that are directly interpretable and less computationally demanding. Understanding when nonlinear...
Background and Rationale: The hippocampus is a critical structure for memory, cognition, and emotional regulation, and its dysfunction is consistently implicated in major psychiatric disorders. Global hippocampal volume reduction is among the most robust neuroimaging findings in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, conventional volumetric measures are inherently coarse: they collapse...
Introduction
Despite representing only ~2% of body mass, the human brain consumes about 20% of the body’s total energy (Raichle 2006). Most of this energy fuels spontaneous activity at rest and is produced through oxidative phosphorylation (OxPhos), powered by mitochondria. A recently developed voxelwise atlas of mitochondrial respiratory capacity offers an unprecedented view of this key...
Background
Impulsivity is a multifaceted trait that emerges in childhood and is linked to several psychiatric disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and substance use disorders. Recent genomic and neuroimaging studies have identified genetic loci and brain systems associated with impulsivity and risk-taking behaviors. However, how these genetic underpinnings overlap...
The BigBrain dataset represents the first ultrahigh-resolution 3D model of the human brain at 20 µm isotropic resolution, reconstructed from 7,404 histological sections of a human post-mortem brain. This unique dataset provides the basis for cytoarchitectonic mapping at a level of anatomical detail that bridges microscopic cellular organization with macroscale brain imaging. Traditionally,...
Cortical thinning is associated with pruning, neuroplasticity, and cognitive decline. While age is a crucial predictor of thinning, it does not account for all its variability. We developed models of cortical thinning based on temporal and spatial variables, including age, cortical type, lobes, brain structures, curvature, and laminar architecture. We utilized MRI scans from 871 participants...
INTRODUCTION.
The superficial white matter (SWM) immediately beneath the cortical mantle harbors short-range U-fibers that interconnect adjacent cortical regions, thereby supporting local information integration. Due to the key role of U-fibers in brain plasticity and aging, alterations in their density are observed in various disorders[1,2,3]. Despite its importance, the SWM has been...
Objectives
Genetic risk factors of Parkinson's disease (PD) may influence disease susceptibility through various mechanisms throughout the lifespan. However, how different mechanisms contribute to PD development remains unclear. Here we aimed to investigate relationships between brain structure and PD and distinguish between neurodevelopmental and later-life mechanisms underlying genetic...
p-HCP (Prenatal Human Connectome Patterns) is a high-resolution multimodal MRI dataset of human fetal brain development spanning the second half of gestation. Acquired ex vivo at ultra-high field strength (11.7 T), this dataset includes whole-hemisphere images at 100–200 μm isotropic resolution: anatomical scans, quantitative relaxometry maps, and high-angular-resolution diffusion imaging...
The human prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a central role in cognitive control and emotion regulation, supported by a protracted and heterogeneous maturation across its subregions (e.g., dorsolateral vs. ventromedial, medial vs. lateral) [1, 2]. This intra-PFC variability is a hallmark of its functional specialization [3, 4]. Importantly, the developmental trajectory of the PFC is shaped not only...
We present a scalable computational framework for simulating brain dynamics within structurally complex regions such as the hippocampus, integrating high-resolution multimodal data—including BigBrain-derived surface meshes and diffusion MRI tractography—into The Virtual Brain simulator. This Region Brain Network Model (RBNM) framework enables vertex-level placement of neural mass models (NMMs)...
Introduction
Segmenting cellular structures in electron microscopy (EM) images is crucial for studying the morphology of neurons and glial cells in both healthy and diseased brain tissues. Traditionally, this task has relied on manual annotation, requiring neuroanatomy experts to examine images slice by slice and delineate each structure individually. However, manual annotation is highly...
Naturalistic stimuli, such as movie-watching, amplify behaviorally relevant brain networks and sensory-driven cortical hierarchies (1). However, the large-scale organizational principles that govern how functional connectivity (FC) reconfigures in such contexts remain incompletely understood. Here, we leveraged ultra-high-field (7T) fMRI data from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) (2) and the...
The hippocampal formation (HF) plays a pivotal role in different aspects of memory, with its subdivisions having various functional implications. The hippocampus has been parcellated in different ways both in histological and MRI studies [1, 2]. In the BigBrain, 3D rendering of the hippocampus was performed with its subdivisions being revealed through unfolding and unsupervised clustering of...
Introduction:
Among their many applications,interpolation methods have proven particularly valuable in neuroimaging for frame rate enhancement, detailed reconstruction of 3D datasets, and replacing missing data. The latter problem becomes critical when dealing with ultra-high (cellular) resolution brain images. One such application is with the BigBrain, a 3D reconstruction of 7404...
