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.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e53715 |
Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | eLife |
Volume | 9 |
Early online date | 21 Aug 2020 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 7 Sept 2020 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Neuroscience
- General Immunology and Microbiology
- General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology