A nested cortex parcellation combining analysis of MEG forward problem and diffusion MRI tractography

Understanding the relationship between structure and function is a major challenge in neuroscience. Diffusion MRI (dMRI) in the only non-invasive modality allowing to have access to the neural structure. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is another non-invasive modality that allows a direct access to the temporal succession of cognitive processes. Functional cortex parcellation being one of the most important ways to understand structure-function relationship, we propose an innovative method merging MEG and dMRI to parcellate the cortex. The combination of MEG forward problem and connectivity information reveals cortical areas generating a similar magnetic field at sensors while having a similar connectivity. Results show suitable clusters that forecast interesting studies for inter- and intra-subjects comparisons of the cortex parcellations. The automatic nested cortex parcellation we propose could be a first step to analyse sources that are seeds of long or short range connectivity and to differentiate these connectivities in the white matter.