Jatin Batta L&S Sciences
Frontoparietal Tertiary Sulci: Functional Cognitive Networks?
Human brains contain ridges (gyri) and indentations (sulci) that other species do not have – especially in evolutionarily expanded neuroanatomical locations, such as association cortices like the lateral prefrontal (LPFC) and lateral parietal cortices (LPC; Zilles et al., 2013; Van Essen, 2007; Voorhies et al., 2021). Indeed, many LPFC and LPC neuroanatomical features are specific to the human brain. For example, recent research has revealed that hominoid-specific tertiary sulci in LPFC serve as functional landmarks (Miller et al., 2021a,b) and their morphological features are predictive of cognition (Voorhies et al., 2021; Yao et al., 2022). Nevertheless, a main limitation of this previous work is that it was restricted to LPFC. Here, we aim to overcome this limitation by shifting the focus from lobular (e.g., within LPFC) to network (e.g., between LPFC and LPC) relationships. We focus on LPFC and LPC due to previously published work in pediatric and adult cohorts. After defining tertiary sulci in LPC and LPFC, we will use the established pipeline in the lab to test the hypothesis that tertiary sulci in different lobes share functional connectivity profiles (“fingerprints”) and that these fingerprints are different than those of primary and secondary sulci.
Message To Sponsor
Hi! Thank you so much for funding my Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. I really appreciate the opportunity to conduct this research.