Minimal surface : A useful paradigm to describe the deeper part of the corpus callosum?

• Published in: Brain research bulletin Vol. 44; no. 2; pp. 117 - 124
• Main Authors: STIEVENART, J.-L, IBA-ZIZEN, M.-T, TOURBAH, A, LOPEZ, A, THIBIERGE, M, ABANOU, A, CABANIS, E. A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Elsevier Science 1997
• Subjects: Adult; Anatomy; Biological and medical sciences; Central nervous system; Corpus Callosum - anatomy & histology; Factor Analysis, Statistical; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Middle Aged; Models, Neurological; Multiple Sclerosis - pathology; Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs; Human; Multiple sclerosis; Central nervous system; Anatomy; Morphometry; Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging; Corpus callosum; Brain (vertebrata)
• DOI: 10.1016/S0361-9230(97)00113-5
• ISSN: 0361-9230

The aim of this magnetic resonance imaging study was to find a geometrical characterization of the deeper part of the corpus callosum. Its shape was studied in 12 middle-aged persons free of white matter pathology. Profiles of curvatures were measured showing that this surface was close to a minimal one, especially at the genu and near the splenium. To assess the effect of a white matter pathology on these geometrical features, the same measurements were performed in an extra group of nine patients with definite multiple sclerosis. The hypothesis of curvatures profiles parallelism for the two groups could be rejected at the 0.05 confidence level for the mean curvatures but not for the Gaussian ones. Curvatures profiles may give indications on balance between the cortex and the fiber bundles growth rates during the development and on large scale modifications co-occurring with multilocular white matter pathologies.