Motifs of brain cortical folding from birth to adulthood

Abstract

Cortical folding of the brain is widely regarded as an interplay between genetic programming and biomechanical forces, closely linked to cytoarchitectonic regionalisation. Abnormal folding patterns are frequently observed in neurodevelopmental conditions and psychiatric disorders. However, significant inter-individual variability of secondary and tertiary folds obscures the detection of shape biomarkers and confounds the investigation of folding-functional relationships. Here, we investigate cortical folding heterogeneity at a fine scale, using Multimodal Surface Matching with Hierarchical Templates (MSM-HT), a hierarchical surface registration, to parse cortical folding patterns into a representative family of distinct anatomical templates. By applying this technique both to young adults from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) and neonates in the Developing HCP and Brain Imaging in Babies (BIBS) cohorts, we identify and characterise common lobe-wise folding patterns: observing consistency across both age groups, with neonatal samples showing less variation. Crucially, we highlight significant hemispheric asymmetry within the temporal lobe in adults, with a consistent trend in neonates. This study provides a critical step towards understanding brain asymmetry and complex relationships between folding and function, offering a robust framework to generalise the uncovered cortical folding motifs across datasets and developmental stages. Guo and colleagues parse cortical folding variability into a family of distinct anatomical motifs that generalise across adults and neonates. These motifs shed light on structural asymmetry, heritability, and folding-function links.