Gyrification from constrained cortical expansion.

ABSTRACT: The exterior of the mammalian brain--the cerebral cortex--has a conserved layered structure whose thickness varies little across species. However, selection pressures over evolutionary time scales have led to cortices that have a large surface area to volume ratio in some organisms, with the result that the brain is strongly convoluted into sulci and gyri. Here we show that the gyrification can arise as a nonlinear consequence of a simple mechanical instability driven by tangential expansion of the gray matter constrained by the white matter. A physical mimic of the process using a layered swelling gel captures the essence of the mechanism, and numerical simulations of the brain treated as a soft solid lead to the formation of cusped sulci and smooth gyri similar to those in the brain. The

SUBMITTER: Tallinen T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4156754 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature