Visualization of Brain Statistics With R Packages ggseg and ggseg3d

Abstract

There is an increased emphasis on visualizing neuroimaging results in more intuitive ways. Common statistical tools for dissemination of these results, such as bar charts, lack the spatial dimension that is inherent in neuroimaging data. Here we present two packages for the statistical software R that integrate this spatial component. The ggseg and ggseg3d packages visualize predefined brain segmentations as 2D polygons and 3D meshes, respectively. Both packages are integrated with other well-established R packages, which allows great flexibility. In this Tutorial, we describe the main data and functions in the ggseg and ggseg3d packages for visualization of brain atlases. The highlighted functions are able to display brain-segmentation plots in R. Further, the accompanying ggsegExtra package includes a wider collection of atlases and is intended for community-based efforts to develop additional compatible atlases for ggseg and ggseg3d. Overall, the ggseg packages facilitate parcellation-based visualizations in R, improve and facilitate the dissemination of results, and increase the efficiency of workflows.