Figure 1. Comparison between cortical folding patterns and cortical growth rates.

The white matter surface of the 31^st week fetal brain atlas is used as a reference. (a) Maximal principal curvature (MPC) measured on the surface is used to represent the gyro-sulcal folding patterns. Convex patterns have positive MPC values whereas concave patterns have negative values. (b) Growth rate is computed vertex-wise based on the cortical thickness values from the 25^th week fetal brain to the 31^st week fetal brain. The spherical registration method⁴³ is used to warp the other white matter surfaces (from the 25^th week to the 30^th week) to the 31^st week one and correspondences between vertices across time are established accordingly. Growth rate is defined as the slope of the linear regression fit to the cortical thickness curve.