Functional connectivity and the human brain functional connectome

Understanding how the brain works requires knowledge of how brain regions communicate with each other to form large-scale functional networks.

The “functional connectome” is a term used to describe the collective set of functional connections in the brain. Measuring these connections at any scale is a great challenge. Our research includes investigations into how best to measure these networks at a macroscopic scale (millimetre resolution) with non-invasive neuroimaging methods such as functional MRI (fMRI). Functional connectivity provides a measure of the correlations in activity over time between brain regions, and is the mainstay of current research into brain networks. Our investigations include correlation-based functional connectivity explorations as well as data-driven approaches such as independent component analysis and machine learning. We are also developing novel approaches such as Dynamic Regional Phase Synchrony (DRePS).