Normative cerebral cortical thickness for human visual areas

Neuroimage. 2019 Nov 1:201:116057. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116057. Epub 2019 Jul 25.

Abstract

Studies of changes in cerebral neocortical thickness often rely on small control samples for comparison with specific populations with abnormal visual systems. We present a normative dataset for FreeSurfer-derived cortical thickness across 25 human visual areas derived from 960 participants in the Human Connectome Project. Cortical thickness varies systematically across visual areas, in broad agreement with canonical visual system hierarchies in the dorsal and ventral pathways. In addition, cortical thickness estimates show consistent within-subject variability and reliability. Importantly, cortical thickness estimates in visual areas are well described by a normal distribution, making them amenable to direct statistical comparison.

Keywords: Cortical thickness; Extrastriate; FreeSurfer; Human connectome project; MRI; V1; Visual cortex.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Cerebral Cortex / anatomy & histology*
  • Cerebral Cortex / diagnostic imaging*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging*
  • Male
  • Organ Size
  • Reference Values
  • Visual Cortex / anatomy & histology
  • Visual Cortex / diagnostic imaging
  • Young Adult