Brain networks: The next steps Comment on: 'Understanding brain networks and brain organization' by Luiz Pessoa

摘要

The study of brain function from the perspective of whole brain networks has been a focus within the brain imaging community for many years, but has not yet overtaken the traditional approach of focusing on a specific region or set of regions. Pessoa [1] provides a very nice summary of the many reasons why network-based approaches should be used more commonly while also outlining the open questions and challenges, many of which also exist for the predominant region-based approach. One important point to frame the problem well, however, is to define carefully what is meant by the term network, which can be used in many different ways. Pessoa's definition is consistent with that used in the network science field, that is, a graph theoretical perspective based on nodes and edges, though other (useful) definitions are also quite widely used in the brain imaging community and should not be discounted [2]. The concept of networks is a very powerful tool for studying the brain, and also for potentially pointing us to regions that are at high-risk or potentially especially important to protect (or the oft undervalued weak but wide-spread connections as Pessoa points out).