Systematic bias in surface area asymmetry measurements from automatic cortical parcellations.

ABSTRACT: Anatomical asymmetry is a hallmark of the human brain and may reflect hemispheric differences in its functional organization. Widely used software like FreeSurfer can automate neuroanatomical measurements and facilitate studies of hemispheric asymmetry. However, patterns of surface area lateralization measured using FreeSurfer are curiously consistent across diverse samples. Here, we demonstrate systematic biases in these measurements obtained from the default processing pipeline. We compared surface area asymmetry measured from reconstructions of original brains vs. the same scans after flipping their left-right orientation. The default pipeline returned implausible asymmetry patterns between the original and flipped brains: Many structures were always left- or right-lateralized. Notably,

SUBMITTER: Liu Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11974827 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature