Whole Brain Parcellation Based on Group-ICA of Tractography Connectivity Maps Shows Differences in Schizophrenia Subjects and Healthy Controls

Lei Wu¹, Vince D. Calhoun¹, Rex Jung², Arvind Caprihan¹

Whole brain structural connectivity maps based on diffusion imaging data were calculated for a large group of healthy controls and schizophrenia subjects. Connectivity maps were obtained based on probtrackx/FSL algorithm. We develop methods based on group-ICA to parcellate the whole brain into regions characterized by strong connectivity within each region. These regions automatically split the white matter into established white matter tracts and the gray matter into functional modules. This brain parcellation is then used to look for connectivity and the fractional anisotropy differences between HC and SZ groups.