The Dorsal Striatum and the Dynamics of the Consensus Connectomes in the Frontal Lobe of the Human Brain

TL;DR

This study investigates the dynamic properties of consensus connectomes in the human frontal lobe, revealing a pattern where connections appear to emanate from dorsal striatum nodes as the consensus threshold decreases.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of $k$-consensus connectomes in the frontal lobe, highlighting a dynamic connectivity pattern linked to sub-cortical structures.

Findings

Connections emanate from dorsal striatum nodes as $k$ decreases

The pattern may reflect axonal fiber development

Reveals a dynamic property of consensus connectomes

Abstract

In the applications of the graph theory it is unusual that one considers numerous, pairwise different graphs on the very same set of vertices. In the case of human braingraphs or connectomes, however, this is the standard situation: the nodes correspond to anatomically identified cerebral regions, and two vertices are connected by an edge if a diffusion MRI-based workflow identifies a fiber of axons, running between the two regions, corresponding to the two vertices. Therefore, if we examine the braingraphs of $n$ subjects, then we have $n$ graphs on the very same, anatomically identified vertex set. It is a natural idea to describe the $k$-frequently appearing edges in these graphs: the edges that are present between the same two vertices in at least $k$ out of the $n$ graphs. Based on the NIH-funded large Human Connectome Project's public data release, we have reported the construction of the Budapest Reference Connectome Server \url{http://connectome.pitgroup.org} that generates and visualizes these $k$-frequently appearing edges. We call the graphs of the $k$-frequently appearing edges "$k$-consensus connectomes" since an edge could be included only if it is present in at least $k$ graphs out of $n$. Considering the whole human brain, we have reported a surprising property of these consensus connectomes earlier. In the present work we are focusing on the frontal lobe of the brain, and we report here a similarly surprising dynamical property of the consensus connectomes when $k$ is gradually changed from $k=n$ to $k=1$: the connections between the nodes of the frontal lobe are seemingly emanating from those nodes that were connected to sub-cortical structures of the dorsal striatum: the caudate nucleus, and the putamen. We hypothesize that this dynamic behavior copies the axonal fiber development of the frontal lobe.