CT 1.2.3 Complex Brain Networks

In this work we are interested in perhaps nature’s most complex system, the mammalian cerebral cortex [1]. Recent advances in experimental neuroscience allow, for the first time, noninvasive studies of white matter tracts in the human nervous system, thus making available cutting-edge anatomical data describing these global connectivity patterns. Further, contemporary “proof of principle” work has shown that existing biological knowledge can be recovered from this connectivity data [2], and we are now in a position to make new discoveries. This work has two main aims: (i) a novel analysis of cutting edge anatomical connectivity data from the brain using a network science approach, and (ii) the development of a new, computable measure of connectivity for a weighted network.