Spatial connectivity for local cortical homogeneity

Abstract

Understanding the functional organization of the primate cortex requires metrics that capture both the temporal and topological dimensions of functional connectivity. Here we propose the spatial connectivity for local homogeneity in cortex (SoHo), a vertex-wise, continuous metric that quantifies the degree to which a cortical vertex and its immediate neighbors share similar spatial profiles of whole-brain functional connectivity. We validated SoHo using large-scale wakeful resting-state fMRI datasets from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) and the NIH Marmoset Brain Mapping Project. In humans, SoHo values showed a striking correspondence with the parcellation boundaries of the HCP multimodal atlas, with low-value regions consistently aligning with areal boundaries. Higher-order association areas exhibited lower SoHo values (functional diversity), while primary sensorimotor areas demonstrated higher values (functional uniformity). Cross-species SoHo mapping revealed that this primary-to-association gradient is evolutionarily conserved across primates, alongside species-specific adaptations in frontoparietal and motor regions. By capturing the local concordance of spatial fingerprints of whole-brain connectivity, SoHo bridges discrete parcellation schemes and continuous models of brain function, offering new insights into primate brain organization and evolution.