Fig. 2: Contextualization of gradients with microstructure and functional connectivity.
From: A multimodal characterization of low-dimensional thalamocortical structural connectivity patterns
A Contextualization with quantitative T1 (qT1). (i) Individual thalamic qT1 values were averaged to create a group-level qT1 map (N = 50). Note the inverse relationship between qT1 intensity and approximated gray matter myelin (represented by black arrows). (ii) 2D space framed by structural connectivity gradient 1 (G1sc) and 2 (G2sc). Data points represent thalamic voxels, color-coded by thalamic group-level qT1 intensity. (iii) Correlation between qT1 intensity and G1sc, as well as qT1 intensity and G2sc. B Contextualization with core-matrix distribution. (i) Conceptualized representation of the core-matrix framework. Core cells (blue) project in a specific fashion to granular layers of the cerebral cortex, whereas matrix cells (red) innervate superficial cortex layers in a distributed fashion. (ii) 2D space framed by G1sc and G2sc. Data points represent thalamic voxels, color-coded by the core-matrix difference map. Negative values of the colormap (blue) indicate a higher proportion of core cells, whereas positive values (red) indicate a higher proportion of matrix cells. (iii) Correlation between core-matrix difference map and G1sc, as well as core-matrix difference map and G2sc. C Contextualization with functional connectivity gradients. (i) Group-level (N = 50) functional connectivity (fc) matrix (z-scored), resulting from correlating thalamic voxel and cortical parcel time-series, followed by gradient decomposition into 10 components with respective eigenvalues. Principal and secondary functional connectivity gradients (G1fc and G2fc) displayed on the axial thalamus slice (see Supplementary Fig. 4 for the right hemisphere). (ii) 2D space framed by G1sc and G2sc. Data points represent thalamic voxels, color-coded by G1fc loadings (top) and G2fc loadings (bottom). (iii) Correlation between G1fc and structural connectivity gradients G1sc and G2sc (top), and G2fc and structural connectivity gradients G1sc and G2sc (bottom); All results are displayed for the left hemisphere.
