Connectional axis of individual functional variability: Patterns, structural correlates, and relevance for development and cognition
The human cerebral cortex exhibits intricate interareal functional synchronization at the macroscale, with substantial individual variability in these functional connections. However, the spatial organization of functional connectivity (FC) variability across the human connectome edges and its significance in cognitive development remain unclear. Here, we identified a connectional axis in the edge-level FC variability. The variability declined continuously along this axis from within-network to between-network connections and from the edges linking association networks to those linking the sensorimotor and association networks. This connectional axis of functional variability is associated with spatial pattern of structural connectivity variability. Moreover, the connectional variability axis evolves in youth with an flatter axis slope. We also observed that the slope of the connectional variability axis was positively related to the performance in the higher-order cognition. Together, our results reveal a connectional axis in functional variability that is linked with structural connectome variability, refines during development, and is relevant to cognition.
Authors
- Li Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3771-5969)
- Hang Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7349-3366)
- Theodore Daniel Satterthwaite (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7072-9399)
- Runsen Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2145-8630)
- Zaixu Cui (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4385-8106)
- Valerie J. Sydnor (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8640-668X)
- Haoshu Xu
- Adam Pines (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9740-3196)
- Yiyao Ma
- Yaoxin Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1610-7326)
- Ting Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0065-3832)
- Jing Cong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1544-7097)
- Guowei Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5121-8665)
- Xiaoyu Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8124-6445)
Institutions
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College (CN)
- Peking University (CN)
- Beijing Normal University (CN)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Child Mind Institute (US)
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research (CN)
- Vanke (China) (CN)
- Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (US)
- Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (IN)
- Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Psychology (CZ)
- Lifespan (US)
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2025-03-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2420228122
- Citations
- 9
- Primary Topic
- Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 12.88
Funders
- Washington University in St. Louis
- Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences
- National Institutes of Health
- McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience
- Beijing Nova Program
- National Institute of Mental Health