#4 · Systems biology

Regional brain organization metrics test normative models, criticality, and morphometry

The dominant thread is region-resolved characterization of brain organization across spatial and temporal scales, with each item testing a structural or dynamical profile against a reference. One preprint asks whether vision models reproduce each BOLD region's cross-region alignment profile, reporting that only brains align with brains and that this exposes limits of normative models. Another analyzes spiking data from mouse cortex and hippocampus, where criticality exponents vary along the anatomical hierarchy, with direction depending on the measure. Two morphometry studies address cortical structure: one uses persistent-homology pipelines on T1 MRI that avoid template normalization, tested on synthetic lesions and ADNI AD versus CN data; the other maps feature-specific cortical ageing transitions from 18 to 94 years linked to structural covariance network organisation. What is new is the emphasis on measure-dependence and on avoiding template or normative assumptions. The items do not share a common dataset or model.