Understanding normal thalamocortical organization in early brain development has significant clinical relevance as it could provide early indicators of neurodevelopmental disorders which could originate from alterations in functional and structural brain maturation. Here we show structural and functional thalamocortical connectivity patterns derived from twenty healthy term infants scanned within the first weeks of life. Our results show that while there is a general good spatial agreement between both modalities, there are certain regions that exhibit different thalamocortical patterns. These discrepancies are possibly mediated by maturational processes such as axonal myelination and synaptogenesis.
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