Mapping the coupling between tract reachability and cortical geometry of the human brain

作者：Deying Li, Andrew Zalesky, Yufan Wang, Haiyan Wang, Liang Ma, Luqi Cheng, Tobias Banaschewski, Gareth J. Barker, Arun L.W. Bokde, Rüdiger Brühl, Sylvane Desrivières, Herta Flor, Hugh Garavan, Penny Gowland, Antoine Grigis, Andreas Heinz, Hervé Lemaître, Jean‐Luc Martinot, Marie‐Laure Paillère Martinot, Éric Artiges, Frauke Nees, Dimitri Papadopoulos Orfanos, Luise Poustka, Michael N. Smolka, Nilakshi Vaidya, Henrik Walter, Robert Whelan, Günter Schumann, Tianye Jia, Congying Chu, Lingzhong Fan · 发表于：Nature Communications · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1038/s41467-025-62812-9 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Functional Brain Connectivity Studies、Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications、Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications

The study of cortical geometry and connectivity is prevalent in human brain research. However, these two aspects of brain structure are usually examined separately, leaving the essential connections between the brain’s folding patterns and white matter connectivity unexplored. In this study, we aim to elucidate the fundamental links between cortical geometry and white matter tract connectivity. We develop the concept of tract-geometry coupling (TGC) by optimizing the alignment between tract connectivity to the cortex and multiscale cortical geometry. We confirm in two independent datasets that cortical geometry reliably characterizes tract reachability, and that TGC demonstrates high test-retest reliability and individual-specificity. Interestingly, low-frequency TGC is more heritable and behaviorally informative. Finally, we find that TGC can reproduce task-evoked cortical activation patterns and exhibits non-uniform maturation during youth. Collectively, our study provides an approach to mapping cortical geometry-connectivity coupling, highlighting how these two aspects jointly shape the connected brain. Li et al. introduced tract-geometry coupling (TGC) to quantify the coupling between white matter tracts and cortical geometry in the human brain, shedding light on how the brain’s wiring and shape evolve together and its support for behavior and growth.