자기공명영상을 이용한 인간 뇌 비대칭성과 좌우 연결성간의 상관관계 분석

Abstract

Morphological asymmetry of human brain has been an interesting issue in neuroscience. This lateralization is thought to reflect evolutionary, hereditary, developmental and experiental factors. Here, I investigate the source of brain asymmetry, focusing on the relationships between brain lateralization and interhemispheric connectivity in structural and functional perspective. Specifically, I quantified the functional and structural interhemispheric connectivity from human multimodal MRI data (i.e. T1-weighted MRI, DTI, and resting fMRI) to investigate whether the brain functional and structural interhemispheric connectivity account for the inter-individual variability in morphological asymmetry of human brain, which might help in answering the question about the nature of brain lateralization. The major contributions of this study are as follow: First, I developed the methodological procedure for the estimation of structural interhemispheric connectivity. Second, I proved that both the extent of the CC and its microstructural properties should be considered together in the estimation of interhemispheric connectivity in healthy adult populations. Third, I suggested framework for investigation of multimodal data analysis (i.e. T1-weighted MRI, DTI, and resting fMRI). Finally, I showed brain morphological asymmetry is related to both structural and functional interhemispheric connectivity, which could give important insights concerning the nature of brain lateralization.