MRI-based surface area estimates in the normal adult human brain: evidence for structural organisation

There are a number of quantitative relationships between geometric parameters describing the structure of the normal human cerebral cortex examined in vivo using volumetric magnetic resonance imaging. A voxel-counting method is used to estimate grey-white interface surface area. The effects of bias associated with the method are considered. In 33 normal controls, the cerebral hemispheres were symmetric in terms of total volume, irrespective of handedness, but not in terms of surface areas for right-handers. The surface area of the grey matter-white matter interface was directly proportional to the cortical grey matter volume, suggesting that growth of the neocortex is primarily tangential, with repetition of a basic structural element rather than gross alterations in the thickness of the cortex. The majority of the surface area of the grey-white interface lies within gyral white matter cores. The mean thickness of the cortex of the right cerebral hemisphere in vivo was 3.0 mm and that of the left 3.3 mm. There was a relationship between the cross-sectional area of the corpus callosum and grey-white interface surface area, suggesting that a fixed proportion and cortical neurons extend interhemispheric axons. These findings suggest that there are general architectural principles governing the organisation of the complex, but ordered, human cerebral cortex.