Inferring Anatomical Connectivity from Cortical Thickness

• Activity Number: 323
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 6, 2013 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: ENAR
• Author(s): Moo K. Chung*+
• Companies: University of Wisconsin
• Keywords: Keith Worsley ; Brain ; Neuroimage ; Persistent homology ; correlations ; Sparse correlation

Abstract

Keith Worsley proposed a new idea of thresholding cross-correlations of cortical thickness over different brain regions in obtaining anatomical connectivity in 2005 (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 360:913-920). This intriguing idea caught the attention of many neuroimaging researchers since it offers a new opportunity to study anatomical brain connectivity without diffusion tensor imaging. Since then numerous neuroimaging studies have used and extended Worley's idea. We will review Keith's original idea of cortical thickness based anatomical brain connectivity and his influence in the field. In this particular paper, he wrote, "we expect clustering, particularly the single-linkage types, to be behave in a similar way to thresholding correlations" in connection to his method. We will prove what he guessed is actually correct via persistent homology that can easily link hierarchical clustering to correlation thresholding.