Structural and functional connectivity reconstruction with CATO- A Connectivity Analysis TOolbox

We describe a Connectivity Analysis TOolbox (CATO) for the reconstruction of structural and functional brain connectivity based on diffusion weighted imaging and resting-state functional MRI data. CATO is a multimodal software package that enables researchers to run end-to-end reconstructions from MRI data to structural and functional connectome maps, customize their analyses and utilize various software packages to preprocess data. Structural and functional connectome maps can be reconstructed with respect to user-defined (sub)cortical atlases providing aligned connectivity matrices for integrative multimodal analyses. We outline the imple-mentation and usage of the structural and functional processing pipelines in CATO. Performance was calibrated with respect to simulated diffusion weighted imaging data from the ITC2015 challenge and test-retest diffusion weighted imaging data and resting-state functional MRI data from the Human Connectome Project. CATO is open-source software distributed under the MIT License and available as a MATLAB toolbox and as a stand-alone application at www.dutchconnectomelab.nl/CATO .

Automated summary

We present a toolbox called CATO for reconstructing brain connectivity using diffusion weighted imaging and resting-state functional MRI data. This multimodal software package allows for end-to-end reconstructions, customized analyses, and utilization of various software packages for data preprocessing. Structural and functional connectome maps can be reconstructed based on user-defined atlases, providing aligned connectivity matrices for multimodal analyses. The performance of CATO was evaluated using simulated diffusion weighted imaging data and real data from the Human Connectome Project. CATO is open-source software available as a MATLAB toolbox and stand-alone application.