FUNCTIONAL AND STRUCTURAL MAPPING OF HUMAN CEREBRAL-CORTEX - SOLUTIONS ARE IN THE SURFACES

The human cerebral cortex is notorious for the depth and irregularity of its convolutions and for its variability from one individual to the next. These complexities of cortical geography have been a chronic im pediment to studies of functional specialization in the cortex, In thi s report, we discuss ways to compensate for the convolutions by using a combination of strategies whose common denominator involves explicit reconstructions of the cortical surface, Surface-based visualization involves reconstructing cortical surfaces and displaying them, along w ith associated experimental data, in various complementary formats (in cluding three-dimensional native configurations, two-dimensional slice s, extensively smoothed surfaces, ellipsoidal representations, and cor tical flat maps), Generating these representations for the cortex of t he Visible Man leads to a surface-based atlas that has important advan tages over conventional stereotaxic atlases as a substrate for display ing and analyzing large amounts of experimental data, We illustrate th is by showing the relationship between functionally specialized region s and topographically organized areas in human visual cortex, Surface- based warping allows data to be mapped from individual hemispheres to a surface-based atlas while respecting surface topology, improving reg istration of identifiable landmarks, and minimizing unwanted distortio ns. Surface-based warping also can aid in comparisons between species, which we illustrate by warping a macaque flat map to match the shape of a human flat map, Collectively, these approaches will allow more re fined analyses of commonalities as well as individual differences in t he functional organization of primate cerebral cortex.