Surface-based approaches to spatial localization and registration in primate cerebral cortex
David van Essen
Washington University
Neurobiology
Explicit surface reconstructions provide invaluable substrates for visualizing and analyzing the complex convolutions of the cerebral cortex. This report illustrates the utility of surface-based atlases of the human and macaque monkey brain for representing various aspects of cortical organization and function. These include multiple cortical partitioning schemes, as well as an open-ended collection of complex activation patterns derived from fMRI studies.
Surface-based registration from one hemisphere to another offers a powerful framework for (i) objectively and quantitatively representing both the consistencies and variability in cortical folding patterns and functional activation maps associated with specific tasks, and (ii) enabling cross-species comparisons and evaluating candidate homologies between cortical areas or functionally defined regions.
