Journal
BIOSYSTEMS
Volume 85, Issue 1, Pages 55-64Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2006.02.008
Keywords
brain connectivity; complexity; network motifs; graph theory; fractal patterns
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Connection patterns of the cerebral cortex consist of pathways linking neuronal populations across multiple levels of scale, from whole brain regions to local minicolumns. This nested interconnectivity suggests the hypothesis that cortical connections are arranged in fractal or self-similar patterns. We describe a simple procedure to generate fractal connection patterns that aim at capturing the potential self-similarity and hierarchical ordering of neuronal connections. We examine these connection patterns by calculating a broad range of structural measures, including small-world attributes and motif composition, as well as some global measures of functional connectivity, including complexity. As we vary fractal patterns by changing a critical control parameter, we find strongly correlated changes in several structural and functional measures, suggesting that they emerge together and are mutually linked. Measures obtained from some modeled fractal patterns closely resemble those of real neuroanatomical data sets, supporting the original hypothesis. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available