Atlas-based clustering of sulcal patterns — Application to the left inferior frontal sulcus

We present an attempt at characterizing local patterns of cortical folding, an open problem in neuroscience. The technique is applied to an extremely variable sulcus: the left inferior frontal sulcus (LIFS). Our approach is based on the use of an average template as a reference to define features that characterize the position, presence, and orientation of elementary sulcal elements of the LIFS. Clustering was performed on the resulting feature vectors after the optimal number of clusters was found using the Gap statistic. The technique was applied to data from 151 subjects. Here, we present our results and discuss the nature of sulcal organization that exists within the apparently unstructured sulcal variability.