An approach for parcellating human cortical areas using resting-state correlations

Resting State Functional Connectivity (RSFC) reveals properties related to the brain's underlying organization and function. Features related to RSFC signals, such as the locations where the patterns of RSFC exhibit abrupt transitions, can be used to identify putative boundaries between cortical areas (RSFC-Boundary Mapping). The locations of RSFC-based area boundaries are consistent across independent groups of subjects. RSFC-based parcellation converges with parcellation information from other modalities in many locations, including task-evoked activity and probabilistic estimates of cellular architecture, providing evidence for the ability of RSFC to parcellate brain structures into functionally meaningful units. We not only highlight a collection of these observations, but also point out several limitations and observations that mandate careful consideration in using and interpreting RSFC for the purposes of parcellating the brain's cortical and subcortical structures.