The cerebral cortex is a thin sheet of neural tissue that is extensively folded in order to fit within the cranium. Studies of cortical organization can be greatly facilitated by explicit surface reconstructions that preserve topological relationships within the surface. Accordingly, we have generated computerized surface reconstructions for both cerebral hemispheres of the Visible Man. The volume and 3-D surface reconstructions were then transformed to correspond to the Talairach coordinate space that is widely used in functional brain imaging studies. Surface reconstructions of the left and right hemispheres of the Visible Man.
Arrows indicate positions of artificial cuts.
For many types of analyses it is desirable to remove these convolutions and represent the cortex as a minimally distorted flat surface. However, closer inspection of the cortical geography reveals conspicuous differences in the pattern of the many minor sulci. Although the flat maps of the human cortex are clearly more complex than those previously made of the macaque, the overall configurations of the maps share important similarities. The presence of relatively undistorted flat maps of the human cortex provides a natural substrate for surface-based coordinate systems. These were generated separately for each hemisphere by establishing a square grid that overlays the flat cortical map.