OHBM2020: Network Neuroscience 1

This OHBM2020 Educational session teaches you about how to map the networks of the brain. You'll find out from leading neuroimagers about basic concepts in network neuroscience, how to quantify connectivity and how to model brain function. Speakers include Alex Fornito, Janine Bijsterbosch, Shella Keilholz and many others...

[neillamas]

Summary of 1st presentation (quick overview)

2 principle fundamentales of brain organisation :
- functional segregation (brain regions)
- functional integration (connections between brain regions)

3 types of connectivity:
- structural: anatomical
- functional connectivity: correlations between signals from brain regions
- effective connectivity: effect of neurons on one another

Knowledge in functional segregation is much more advanced than functional integration.

Map of the connectivity in the macaque brain: Felleman, Van Essen, 1991

Tools to measure brain connectivity (conectome):
- Diffusion MRI (diffusion of water inside myelinated axons --> structural connectivity)
- FMRI (correlations between brain regions amount of blood flows --> functional connectivity)
- MEG (and EEG?) more recently
Parameters of FMRI
Input: heuristics to define nodes and edges
Output: direction of the connection, its weight, its effect (inhibition vs excitation)

Issues with MRI: head motion and respiration influence data.

Processing the info:
- graph theory: nodes and edges, topology