Identification of species-preserved cortical landmarks

Abstract

Primate brain evolution has been an intriguing research topic for centuries. Previous comparative studies focused on identification of species-preserved cortical landmarks or axonal pathways via approaches such as registration. However, because of huge cross-species variations, these studies dealt with only a few specific fasciculi and cortices or relied on a predefined brain parcellation shared among species. In this work, we used T1-weighted MRI data and diffusion MRI data to identify novel landmarks on entire cortices based on folding patterns on macaque and human brains and further proposed a pipeline to establish cross-species correspondence for them based on networks derived from streamline fibers. Our experimental results are consistent with the reports in the literature, demonstrating the effectiveness and promise of this framework. The merits of this work lie in not only the identification of a novel, large group of species-preserved cortical landmarks, but also new insights into the relationship between cortical folding patterns and axonal wiring diagrams along the evolution line.