image: Brain Connectivity is the essential peer-reviewed journal covering groundbreaking findings in the rapidly advancing field of connectivity research at the systems and network levels. view more
Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers
New Rochelle, NY, March 7, 2019--Researchers are analyzing brain connectomes to understand how normal and abnormal interactions between functional brain networks affect healthy brain development and contribute to disorders such as epilepsy. The Brain Connectome is the focus of a two-part Special Issue of Brain Connectivity, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. Click here to read the full-text articles free on the Brain Connectivity website through April 7, 2019.
The Special Issues were led by Guest Editors Brent Munsell, PhD, College of Charleston (SC), Guofong Wu, PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Leonardo Bonilha, MD, PhD, Medical University of South Carolina (Charleston), and Paul Laurienti, MD, PhD, Wake Forest School of Medicine (Winston-Salem, NC)
Featured in Part 1 is the article entitled "Asymmetric Insular Connectomics Revealed by Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis of Healthy Brain Development." In this article, Jacob Levman and coauthors from Boston Children's Hospital (MA), Massachusetts General Hospital (Charlestown), Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA), and St. Francis Xavier University (Antigonish, Canada) focus on a part of the brain called the insula. The researchers present an analysis of structural connectivity between the insula and the rest of the brain across 642 examinations. This research demonstrates the feasibility of performing connectomics (mapping out the many connections in the human brain) with real world clinical data in a pediatric population, supported by high quality data acquisition from Boston Children's Hospital. The study demonstrates the ability to clinically detect neural fiber pathway lateralization in the brain, mapping out hemispheric asymmetries that may help in better understanding how brain structure supports functions such as language tasks and awareness. This study also advances the field of connectomics by demonstrating the remarkable potential from its inclusion in large-scale routine clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Sourabh Palande and a team of researchers from University of Utah (Salt Lake City) analyze an approach to visualize brain networks based on how similar the gray matter properties in brain regions are across subjects in the article entitled "Revisiting Abnormalities in Brain Network Architecture Underlying Autism Using Topology-Inspired Statistical Inference." This approach provides a way to visualize brain networks based on how similar the gray matter properties in brain regions are across subjects. Using methods from topological data analysis, the researchers identify abnormalities in a specific network in subjects with autism, the salience network. This network is responsible for processing new or unexpected information in the brain. These results add to growing evidence of statistically significant abnormalities in gray matter structure underlying the salience network in autism.
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Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers R21MH118739, R03NS091587, R01HD078561, R03NS091587, U01NS093650, R01EB022876, K08MH100609, and R01MH080826. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
About the Journal
Brain Connectivity is the essential peer-reviewed journal covering groundbreaking findings in the rapidly advancing field of connectivity research at the systems and network levels. Published 10 times per year in print and online, the Journal is under the leadership of Founding and Co-Editors-in-Chief Christopher Pawela, PhD, Assistant Professor, Medical College of Wisconsin, and Bharat Biswal, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology. It includes original peer-reviewed papers, review articles, point-counterpoint discussions on controversies in the field, and a product/technology review section. To ensure that scientific findings are rapidly disseminated, articles are published Instant Online within 72 hours of acceptance, with fully typeset, fast-track publication within 4 weeks. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Brain Connectivity website.
About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative medical and biomedical peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Neurotrauma and Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management. Its biotechnology trade magazine, GEN (Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, newsmagazines, and books is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.
Journal
Brain Connectivity