Fractal Analysis of MRI Data at 7 T: How Much Complex Is the Cerebral Cortex?

The human brain is a highly complex structure, which can be only partially described by conventional metrics derived from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), such as volume, cortical thickness, and gyrification index. In the last years, fractal dimension (FD) - useful quantitative index of geometry has proven to well express morphological complexity cerebral cortex. However, this likely higher than that we observe using MRI scanners with 1.5 T or 3 field strength. Ultrahigh-field (UHF-MRI) improves smaller anatomical structures exploring down submillimetric spatial resolution signal-to-noise contrast-to-noise ratios. Accordingly, hypothesized UHF-MRI might reveal level structural study, an improved box-counting algorithm, estimated FD cortex in six public private T1-weighted datasets young healthy subjects (for total 87 subjects), acquired at different strengths (1.5 T, 7 T). Our results showed, for first time, MRI-derived values imaged were significantly those observed lower strengths. provides definition not achievable improve unveiling real brain.