A large normative connectome for exploring the tractographic correlates of focal brain interventions

Sci Data. 2024 Apr 8;11(1):353. doi: 10.1038/s41597-024-03197-0.

Abstract

Diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI) is a widely used neuroimaging modality that permits the in vivo exploration of white matter connections in the human brain. Normative structural connectomics - the application of large-scale, group-derived dMRI datasets to out-of-sample cohorts - have increasingly been leveraged to study the network correlates of focal brain interventions, insults, and other regions-of-interest (ROIs). Here, we provide a normative, whole-brain connectome in MNI space that enables researchers to interrogate fiber streamlines that are likely perturbed by given ROIs, even in the absence of subject-specific dMRI data. Assembled from multi-shell dMRI data of 985 healthy Human Connectome Project subjects using generalized Q-sampling imaging and multispectral normalization techniques, this connectome comprises ~12 million unique streamlines, the largest to date. It has already been utilized in at least 18 peer-reviewed publications, most frequently in the context of neuromodulatory interventions like deep brain stimulation and focused ultrasound. Now publicly available, this connectome will constitute a useful tool for understanding the wider impact of focal brain perturbations on white matter architecture going forward.

Publication types

  • Dataset

MeSH terms

  • Brain / diagnostic imaging
  • Connectome* / methods
  • Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods
  • Humans
  • Neuroimaging
  • White Matter* / diagnostic imaging