Abstract
The human cortex is characterized by local morphological features such as cortical thickness, myelin content, and gene expression that change along the posterior-anterior axis. We investigated if some of these structural gradients are associated with a similar gradient in a prominent feature of brain activity - namely the frequency of oscillations. In resting-state MEG recordings from healthy participants (N = 187) using mixed effect models, we found that the dominant peak frequency in a brain area decreases significantly along the posterior-anterior axis following the global hierarchy from early sensory to higher order areas. This spatial gradient of peak frequency was significantly anticorrelated with that of cortical thickness, representing a proxy of the cortical hierarchical level. This result indicates that the dominant frequency changes systematically and globally along the spatial and hierarchical gradients and establishes a new structure-function relationship pertaining to brain oscillations as a core organization that may underlie hierarchical specialization in the brain.
Highlights
It is well established that the brain’s cortical areas differ in their cyto- and myeloarchitectonic structure, local and long-range anatomical connectivity, activity and, by consequence, their function (Glasser et al, 2016; Huntenburg et al, 2017)
In resting-state MEG recordings from healthy participants (N = 187) using mixed effect models, we found that the dominant peak frequency in a brain area decreases significantly along the posterior-anterior axis following the global hierarchy from early sensory to higher order areas
We found a significant decrease of alpha peak frequency only along the posterior-anterior direction, while theta(correlation with y-axis: r = 0.40, p
Summary
It is well established that the brain’s cortical areas differ in their cyto- and myeloarchitectonic structure, local and long-range anatomical connectivity, activity and, by consequence, their function (Glasser et al, 2016; Huntenburg et al, 2017). Many structural features that distinguish individual brain areas change gradually in an orderly manner across the cortex, leading to spatial feature gradients. Neuron density decreases and neuronal connectivity increases from posterior to anterior brain areas. These differences have been attributed to differences in neurogenesis for posterior compared to anterior brain areas (Hill et al, 2010; Huntenburg et al, 2018). Huntenburg et al suggest a sensorimotor to transmodal gradient as an important intrinsic organizing dimension of human cortex (Huntenburg et al, 2018) reflecting gradual changes in structural features from functionally unimodal (dedicated sensory or motor) areas to higher order, transmodal areas
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