Development of sensorimotor-visual connectome gradient at birth predicts neurocognitive outcomes at 2 years of age.

Functional connectome gradients represent fundamental organizing principles of the brain. Here, we report the development of the connectome gradients in preterm and term babies aged 31-42 postmenstrual weeks using task-free functional MRI and its association with postnatal cognitive growth. We show that the principal sensorimotor-to-visual gradient is present during the late preterm period and continuously evolves toward a term-like pattern.

Functional connectome through the human life span.

The lifespan growth of the functional connectome remains unknown. Here, we assemble task-free functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging data from 33,250 individuals aged 32 postmenstrual weeks to 80 years from 132 global sites. We report critical inflection points in the nonlinear growth curves of the global mean and variance of the connectome, peaking in the late fourth and late third decades of life, respectively.

Structural insight into the individual variability architecture of the functional brain connectome.

Human cognition and behaviors depend upon the brain's functional connectomes, which vary remarkably across individuals. However, whether and how the functional connectome individual variability architecture is structurally constrained remains largely unknown. Using tractography- and morphometry-based network models, we observed the spatial convergence of structural and functional connectome individual variability, with higher variability in heteromodal association regions and lower variability in primary regions.

Spherical U-Net on Cortical Surfaces: Methods and Applications.

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have been providing the state-of-the-art performance for learning-related problems involving 2D/3D images in Euclidean space. However, unlike in the Euclidean space, the shapes of many structures in medical imaging have a spherical topology in a manifold space, e.g.

CORTICAL FOLDINGPRINTS FOR INFANT IDENTIFICATION.

Cortical folding of the adult brain is highly convoluted and encodes inter-subject variable characteristics. Recent studies suggest that it is useful for individual identification in adults. However, little is known about whether the infant cortical folding, which undergoes dynamic postnatal development, can be used for individual identification.

Individual identification and individual variability analysis based on cortical folding features in developing infant singletons and twins.

Studying the early dynamic development of cortical folding with remarkable individual variability is critical for understanding normal early brain development and related neurodevelopmental disorders. This study focuses on the fingerprinting capability and the individual variability of cortical folding during early brain development. Specifically, we aim to explore (a) whether the developing neonatal cortical folding is unique enough to be considered as a "fingerprint" that can reliably identify an individual within a cohort of infants; (b) which cortical regions manifest more individual variability and thus contribute more for infant identification; (c) whether the infant twins can be distinguished by cortical folding.

CONSTRUCTION OF SPATIOTEMPORAL INFANT CORTICAL SURFACE ATLAS OF RHESUS MACAQUE.

As a widely used animal model in MR imaging studies, rhesus macaque helps to better understand both normal and abnormal neural development in the human brain. However, the available adult macaque brain atlases are not well suitable for study of brain development at the early postnatal stage, since this stage undergoes dramatic changes in brain appearances and structures. Building age matched atlases for this critical period is thus highly desirable yet still lacking.

Exploring folding patterns of infant cerebral cortex based on multi-view curvature features: Methods and applications.

The highly convoluted cortical folding of the human brain is intriguingly complex and variable across individuals. Exploring the underlying representative patterns of cortical folding is of great importance for many neuroimaging studies. At term birth, all major cortical folds are established and are minimally affected by the complicated postnatal environments; hence, neonates are the ideal candidates for exploring early postnatal cortical folding patterns, which yet remain largely unexplored.

Exploring Gyral Patterns of Infant Cortical Folding based on Multi-view Curvature Information.

The human cortical folding is intriguingly complex in its variability and regularity across individuals. Exploring the principal patterns of cortical folding is of great importance for neuroimaging research. The term-born neonates with minimum exposure to the complicated environments are the ideal candidates to mine the postnatal origins of principal cortical folding patterns.

LONGITUDINAL MULTI-SCALE MAPPING OF INFANT CORTICAL FOLDING USING SPHERICAL WAVELETS.

The dynamic development of brain cognition and motor functions during infancy are highly associated with the rapid changes of the convoluted cortical folding. However, little is known about how the cortical folding, which can be characterized on different scales, develops in the first two postnatal years. In this paper, we propose a curvature-based multi-scale method using spherical wavelets to map the complicated longitudinal changes of cortical folding during infancy.

A hypo-status in drug-dependent brain revealed by multi-modal MRI.

Drug addiction is a chronic brain disorder with no proven effective cure. Assessing both structural and functional brain alterations by using multi-modal, rather than purely unimodal imaging techniques, may provide a more comprehensive understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying addiction, which in turn may facilitate future treatment strategies. However, this type of research remains scarce in the literature.