abstract Karen Caeyenberghs

Karen Caeyenberghs (Department of Physical therapy and motor rehabilitation, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UGent)

Graph theoretical analyses of structural connectivity in normal and pathological brain networks

There have been many studies relating diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics and behavioral function, such that degree of white matter pathology in specific fibre bundles predicts behavioral deficits in clinical populations. The majority of these studies have focused on regional structural changes at the neuroanatomical level. This is possibly due to the continuing enthusiasm of researchers for the traditional localizationist view of the brain and the accessibility of brain mapping tools to the researchers. In this talk, we decide not to focus on these regional structural changes in specific areas but instead concentrate on the capacity of information flow within and between regions which is also crucial for behavior. Graph theoretical analysis provides a unique tool to reveal intrinsic attributes of the connectivity patterns in a complex network/graph. This talk will provide a literature review and methodological guide to graph-theoretical analysis of DTI-based data.