Parallel processing chains span cytoarchitectures to organize association cortex
. Here, using multiple precision functional mapping (PFM) modalities (RSFC, task, lags), we discovered that most of association cortex is organized like face processing and SCAN, with small, discrete patches interconnected into chains. Such patch-chains densely tile prefrontal cortex but are largely absent from primary cortex. Cortico-striatal connectivity is organized such that patches of the same chain connect to the same striatal location. Within chains, infra-slow fMRI signals are ordered in time. RSFC-defined chains align with task fMRI localizers (e.g., visual, motor, pain). Chains are absent at birth and emerge in the first year of life, suggesting their formation is at least partially experience-driven. Cytoarchitectonic areas are subdivided by patches, and patches in the same chain are distributed across different cytoarchitectures. Chains represent parallel ordered processing streams that are separated by information domain and behavioral goals, not cytoarchitectonics. Functional subdivision of architectonics into smaller patches, interlinked to form cross-architecture chains, enable greater parallelization and flexible specialization of processing.
Authors
- Kristen M. Scheidter
- Rebecca F. Schwarzlose (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8712-4449)
- Benjamin P. Kay (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3628-8029)
- Charles J. Lynch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1936-9740)
- Steven E. Petersen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8911-3639)
- Aishwarya Rajesh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6583-1695)
- Roselyne J. Chauvin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5786-4705)
- Damien A. Fair (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8602-393X)
- Scott Marek (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0032-9052)
- Ádám Kepecs (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0049-8120)
- Julia Monk
- Ally Dworetsky
- Chad M. Sylvester (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2154-0826)
- Samuel R. Krimmel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5198-1545)
- Anxu Wang
- Timothy O. Laumann
- Athanasia Metoki (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8945-269X)
- Alyssa K. Labonte (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9660-9280)
- Noah J. Baden
- John R. Pruett (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0000-7889)
- Babatunde Adeyemo
- Jianxun Ren
- Hesheng Liu
- Conor Liston
- Evan M Gordon
- Youngeun Park
- Marcus E Raichle
- Tomoyuki Nishino
- Choong-Wan Woo
- Emily Rafka
- Philip Cho
- Nico U F Dosenbach
Institutions
- University of Minnesota (US)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Peking University (CN)
- Washington University in St. Louis (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- Mallinckrodt (United States) (US)
- Institute for Basic Science (KR)
- Weill Cornell Medicine (US)
- Sungkyunkwan University (KR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
- Published
- 2026-04-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.04.21.717753
- Primary Topic
- Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research
- National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association
- Hope Center for Neurological Disorders
- National Institutes of Health
- Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center
- McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience
- National Institute of Mental Health