On early brain folding patterns using biomechanical growth modeling

TL;DR

This paper introduces a biomechanical growth model to simulate early brain folding, examining how physical parameters influence cortical development and potentially relate to neurodevelopmental disorders.

Contribution

It proposes a new brain growth model and investigates the impact of initial cortical thickness on folding patterns using biomechanical simulations.

Findings

Physical parameters influence folding patterns significantly.

The model links neurodevelopmental disorders to biomechanical factors.

Quantitative analysis of gyrification provides new insights.

Abstract

Abnormal cortical folding patterns may be related to neurodevelopmental disorders such as lissencephaly and polymicrogyria. In this context, computational modeling is a powerful tool to provide a better understanding of the early brain folding process. Recent studies based on biomechanical modeling have shown that mechanical forces play a crucial role in the formation of cortical convolutions. However, the correlation between simulation results and biological facts, and the effect of physical parameters in these models remain unclear. In this paper, we propose a new brain longitudinal length growth model to improve brain model growth. In addition, we investigate the effect of the initial cortical thickness on folding patterns, quantifying the folds by the surface-based three-dimensional gyrification index and a spectral analysis of gyrification. The results tend to show that the use of such biomechanical models could highlight the links between neurodevelopmental diseases and physical parameters.