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Published on: August 28, 2020
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Temporal transitions of spontaneous brain activity
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Huck Institutes of Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, United States.
Elife
|March 9, 2018
Summary
Brain connectivity patterns are not random in time. Spontaneous brain activity shows specific sequences in functional connectivity patterns, conserved in rats and humans.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Systems Neuroscience
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) measures spontaneous brain activity using resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI).
- RSFC is known to be non-stationary, but the temporal dynamics and relationships between connectivity patterns remain largely unexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the temporal organization of characteristic RSFC patterns in awake rats and humans.
- To determine if transitions between dynamic RSFC states follow specific sequences.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of dynamic resting-state functional connectivity (dRSFC) in awake rats and humans.
- Application of graph theory to analyze the sequential order of RSFC pattern transitions.
Main Results:
- Transitions between RSFC patterns are not random but follow predictable sequential orders.
- Identification of pivotal RSFC patterns that play key roles in these transitions.
- Demonstration that temporal organization of spontaneous brain activity is conserved across species (rodents and humans).
Conclusions:
- Spontaneous brain activity exhibits non-random temporal organization, in addition to spatial non-randomness.
- The conserved temporal sequencing of brain activity patterns offers new insights into brain dynamics.
- This research provides a foundation for understanding the spatiotemporal dynamics of mammalian brain activity.
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