Mapping techniques for aligning sulci across multiple brains

Visualization and mapping of function on the cortical surface is difficult because of its sulcal and gyral convolutions. Methods to unfold and flatten the cortical surface for visualization and measurement have been described in the literature. This makes visualization and measurement possible, but comparison across multiple subjects is still difficult because of the lack of a standard mapping technique. In this paper, we describe two methods that map each hemisphere of the cortex to a portion of a sphere in a standard way. To quantify how accurately the geometric features of the cortex – i.e., sulci and gyri – are mapped into the same location, sulcal alignment across multiple brains is analyzed, and probabilistic maps for different sulcal regions are generated to be used in automatic labelling of segmented sulcal regions.