Sulcal basins and sulcal strings as new concepts for describing the human cortical topography

Human brain mapping aims at establishing correspondences between brain function and brain anatomy. One of the most intriguing problems in this field is the high inter-personal variability of human neuroanatomy which makes studies across many subjects very difficult. The cortical folds ("sulci") often serve as landmarks that help to establish correspondences between subjects. Here, the authors present a method that both automatically detects and attributes neuroanatomical names to the cortical folds using image analysis methods applied to magnetic resonance data of human brains. The authors claim that the cortical folds can be subdivided into a number of substructures which they call sulcal basins. In addition to the concept of sulcal basins, the authors introduce the concept of sulcal strings which are groups of sulcal basins arranged as strings that are aligned with the Sylvian fissure and the inter-hemispheric cleft. The concept of sulcal basins allows to establish a complete parcellation of the cortical surface into separate regions. These regions are neuroanatomically meaningful and can be identified from MR data sets across many subjects. At the same time, the parcellation is detailed enough to be useful for brain mapping purposes.