Hemispherically-unified surface maps of human cerebral cortex: reliability and hemispheric asymmetries

Xiaojian Kang, Timothy J Herron, Anthony D Cate, E William Yund, David L Woods, Xiaojian Kang, Timothy J Herron, Anthony D Cate, E William Yund, David L Woods

Abstract

Understanding the anatomical and structural organization of the cerebral cortex is facilitated by surface-based analysis enabled by FreeSurfer, Caret, and related tools. Here, we examine the precision of FreeSurfer parcellation of the cortex and introduce a method to align FreeSurfer-registered left and right hemispheres onto a common template in order to characterize hemispheric asymmetries. The results are visualized using Mollweide projections, an area-preserving map. The regional distribution, inter-hemispheric asymmetries and intersubject variability in cortical curvature, sulcal depth, cortical thickness, and cortical surface area of 138 young, right handed subjects were analyzed on the Mollweide projection map of the common spherical space. The results show that gyral and sulcal structures are aligned with high but variable accuracy in different cortical regions and show consistent hemispheric asymmetries that are maximal in posterior temporal regions.

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1. Inflation, registration and projection of…
Figure 1. Inflation, registration and projection of the GM/WM boundary for a subject.
GM/WM surface convexity is color-coded (Gyri  =  green, sulci  =  red). (A) Anatomical image and GM/WM boundary of a subject; (B) Inflated GM/WM boundary of left hemisphere; (C) Registered GM/WM surface in a spherical coordinate system; (D) Mollweide projection map of the registered spherical surface. HG1  =  anterior Heschl's gyrus; MTG  =  middle temporal gyrus; STG  =  superior temporal gyrus.
Figure 2. Mollweide projections of the mean…
Figure 2. Mollweide projections of the mean anatomical maps across 138 subjects.
(A) and (B) show the curvature patterns for the left hemisphere (LH) and mirrored right hemisphere (RH), respectively. Gyri  =  green, sulci  =  red. HG1  =  anterior Heschl's gyrus; MTG  =  middle temporal gyrus; STG  =  superior temporal gyrus. (C) is the average of LH and RH after the RH was mirrored and projected onto the LH. The anatomical structures are blurred and the two correspond landmarks 1 and 2 are dispersed on the average map (C) since the maps of LH and RH are not quite aligned. Two fiducial points used to crudely align the LH and RH, the intersection of HG1 and STG and intersection of STG and MTG, are shown as white circles (LH) and white squares (RH) in (D) and (E) for the LH and RH, respectively. The second row shows the projection maps in the proposed coordinate system in which fiducial point 1 is at the origin and fiducial point 2 is on the Equator, and the difference between the maps of LH and RH are aligned by numerical minimization. The gyral and sulcal structures are more clearly shown on the average map of LH and RH (F).
Figure 3. Mollweide projection maps of mean…
Figure 3. Mollweide projection maps of mean LH (A, B) and RH (C, D) across 138 subjects when they were coregistered to the LH template (A, C) and RH template (right B, D) by FreeSurfer, respectively.
The mean curvature maps in B and C are blurrier then A and D, respectively, when the hemispheres were coregistered to the opposite hemisphere template. E and F show the standard deviation (SD) of RH when it is coregistered to the LH and RH templates, respectively. There is an overall jump in across-subject curvature variance of 74% in subjects' RH when coregistered to the LH template. The curvature difference calculation between LH and RH of the same group of 138 subjects shows LH has higher curvature values than RH (G) if LH and RH were aligned to the LH template, while LH has lower curvature value than RH (H) if both aligned to RH template.
Figure 4. Desikan-Killiany parcellation of LH cortex…
Figure 4. Desikan-Killiany parcellation of LH cortex of one subject displayed on the lateral (A) and medial (B) sides of the inflated GM/WM boundary.
(C) Mollweide projection map of the mean spherical cortical surface averaged across 138 subjects and two hemispheres. The sphere was rotated to position the temporal and occipital lobes in the front/central area of the Mollweide projection. Six anatomical areas were obtained based on the parcellation. FL: Frontal Lobe; IC: Insular Cortex; IHC: Inter-Hemispheric Connection; LC: Limbic Cortex; OL: Occipital Lobe; PL: Parietal Lobe; TL: Temporal Lobe. Anatomical structures (white labels): AG, angular gyrus; CC, corpus callosum; CG, cingulate gyrus; CalcS, calcarine sulcus; ColS, collateral sulcus; Cun, cuneate; CS, central sulcus; FG, fusiform gyrus; HG, Heschl's gyrus, IFG, inferior frontal gyrus; IPL, inferior parietal lobule; IPS, intraparietal sulcus; ITG, inferior temporal gyrus; ITS, inferior temporal sulcus; LG, lingual gyrus; LGofin, long gyrus of the insula; LOS, lateral occipital sulcus; MedFG, medial frontal gyrus; MidFG, mid-frontal gyrus, MidTG, middle temporal gyrus; PCL, paracentral lobule; PHG, parahippocampal gyrus; POS, parieto-occipital sulcus; PoCG, postcentral gyrus, PoCS, postcentral sulcus; PreCG, precentral gyrus; PreCun, precuneus; PTO, parietal/temporal/occipital junction; OTS, occipital temporal sulcus; SF, Sylvian fissure; SFG, superior frontal gyrus; SMG, supramarginal gyrus; SPL, superior parietal lobule; STG, superior temporal gyrus; STS superior temporal sulcus; TOS, transverse occipital sulcus. The lobes are also shown on the lateral (D) and medial (E) cortical surfaces.
Figure 5. Different orientations of the Mollweide…
Figure 5. Different orientations of the Mollweide projection maps can be used to minimize shape distortion in primary regions of interest.
(A) Type I projections minimize distortion of the insula and auditory cortex. (B) Type II projections permit the concurrent visualization of temporal, occipital and parietal cortex. (C) Type III projections minimize distortion in the frontal and parietal lobes. And (D) Type IV projections minimize shape distortions of visual regions surrounding the occipital pole (yellow spot). See Figure 4 for anatomical lobe labels.
Figure 6. Manual landmark locations and dispersion.
Figure 6. Manual landmark locations and dispersion.
(A) Four landmarks on a sphere: (1) The intersection of the superior temporal gyrus and anterior Heschl's gyrus; (2) The superior vertex of the central sulcus; (3) The occipital pole; and (4) The inferior vertex of medial frontal sulcus (MedFS). (B) Landmarks on the mean map identified by one rater for the 138 subjects. White dots are used for LH landmarks and cyan dots for RH landmarks. The same landmarks have larger dispersion when the LH was coregistered to the RH template (C) and when the RHs were coregistered to LH template (D) by FreeSurfer. See Figure 4 for anatomical labels.
Figure 7. Inter-subject and inter-hemispheric variability of…
Figure 7. Inter-subject and inter-hemispheric variability of cortical parcellation.
Semi-transparent color schemes show the parcellations defined in Desikan et al. and Destrieux et al. . (A) and (B) show the inter-subject variability of the two parcellation schemes across 138 subjects. Gyral and sulcal structures are shown by the light and dark gray in the background. Locations that are variably labeled in LH and RH are shown in white and yellow respectively, with cyan showing common variable areas. The bright red area in (C) and (D) shows the mismatch between LH and RH parcellation on the unified map. (E) and (F) show the scatter plots of the cross-hemisphere overlap rate of the two parcellation schemes for LH and RH (y axes) and the indices indicating agreement between automated and expert manual parcellation (x axes). Several anatomical labels with low overlapping rate are shown. The anatomical labels, intraclass correlations (ICCs) and concordance indices (CIs) are taken from Desikan et al. and Destrieux et al. .
Figure 8. Mollweide projection maps of the…
Figure 8. Mollweide projection maps of the mean difference of the convexity (A, in mm) and sulcal depth (B, in mm, defined in Van Essen [2]) between LH and RH.
The difference was averaged across 138 subjects. Positive values are left > right. See Figure 4 for anatomical labels.
Figure 9. Interhemispheric differences ( P
Figure 9. Interhemispheric differences (P<0.005) of mean cortical surface curvature (A) and mean cortical thickness (in mm) (B) across 138 subjects on the mean Mollweide projection maps Type II.
See Figure 4 for anatomical labels.

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