Structure-Function Relationships behind the Phenomenon of Cognitive Resilience in Neurology: Insights for Neuroscience and Medicine

Figure 2

Modeling structure-function relationships. Left. Upper-tier: matrices of (anatomical, simulated-functional, and empirical-functional) average connectivity, between a set of 160 regions of interest derived from automated segmentations of the human cerebral cortex. Network analysis: connectivity information is also represented as cluster of similarly connected regions over the cerebral cortex for empirical and simulated functional connectivity (SAR model, i.e., spatial autoregressive model). Lower-tier: matrices of anatomical connectivity (from DWI-based tractography) are used as inputs to computational models of neurophysiology, with increasing complexity and realism (from SAR to Spike models), from which simulated matrices of functional connectivity are derived. Predictive power: the correlation between simulated and empirical data (predictive power) is highly increased (circle color dots) when missing interhemispheric and homotopic connections are added (the effect is specific to this fiber tract system and robust to permutation schemes [histogram chart]). (Adapted from [102]).