A whole-brain 3D myeloarchitectonic atlas: mapping the Vogt-Vogt legacy to the cortical surface

Building precise and detailed parcellations of anatomically and functionally distinct brain areas has been a major focus in Neuroscience. Pioneer anatomists parcellated the cortical manifold based on extensive histological studies of post-mortem brain, harnessing local variations in cortical cyto- and myeloarchitecture to define areal boundaries. Compared to the cytoarchitectonic field, where multiple neuroimaging studies have recently translated this old legacy data into useful analytical resources, myeloarchitectonics, which parcellate the cortex based on the organization of myelinated fibers, has received less attention. Here, we present the neocortical surface-based myeloarchitectonic atlas based on the histology-derived maps of the Vogt-Vogt school and its 2D translation by Nieuwenhuys. In addition to a myeloarchitectonic parcellation, our package includes intracortical laminar profiles of myelin content based on Vogt-Vogt-Hopf original publications. Histology-derived myelin density mapped on our atlas demonstrate close overlap with in vivo quantitative MRI markers for myelin and relates to cytoarchitectural features. Complementing the existing battery of approaches for digital cartography, the whole-brain myeloarchitectonic atlas offers an opportunity to validate imaging surrogate markers of myelin in both health and disease. HighlightsO_LIOur myeloarchitectonic atlas builds on extensive meta-analyses-derived and ground-truth histological data. C_LIO_LIOur atlas provides qualitative and quantitative 3D information on cortical myelin architecture. C_LIO_LIMRI surrogate markers of myelin demonstrate close overlap with histological cortical parcellations, supporting biological validity of non-invasive metrics. C_LIO_LIThis atlas can be seamlessly integrated into widely used neuroimaging analysis software to inform studies in health and disease. C_LI