Penn Lifespan Informatics and Neuroimaging Center (PennLINC), Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Nat Neurosci. 2023 Apr;26(4):638-649. doi: 10.1038/s41593-023-01282-y. Epub 2023 Mar 27.
Animal studies of neurodevelopment have shown that recordings of intrinsic cortical activity evolve from synchronized and high amplitude to sparse and low amplitude as plasticity declines and the cortex matures. Leveraging resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) data from 1,033 youths (ages 8-23 years), we find that this stereotyped refinement of intrinsic activity occurs during human development and provides evidence for a cortical gradient of neurodevelopmental change. Declines in the amplitude of intrinsic fMRI activity were initiated heterochronously across regions and were coupled to the maturation of intracortical myelin, a developmental plasticity regulator. Spatiotemporal variability in regional developmental trajectories was organized along a hierarchical, sensorimotor-association cortical axis from ages 8 to 18. The sensorimotor-association axis furthermore captured variation in associations between youths' neighborhood environments and intrinsic fMRI activity; associations suggest that the effects of environmental disadvantage on the maturing brain diverge most across this axis during midadolescence. These results uncover a hierarchical neurodevelopmental axis and offer insight into the progression of cortical plasticity in humans.
动物神经发育研究表明，随着可塑性的下降和皮质成熟，皮质内活动的记录从同步和高振幅演变为稀疏和低振幅。利用来自 1033 名青少年（8-23 岁）的静息状态功能磁共振成像（fMRI）数据，我们发现这种内在活动的刻板细化发生在人类发育过程中，并为皮质神经发育变化的梯度提供了证据。内在 fMRI 活动幅度的下降在区域间呈异时性启动，并与皮质内髓鞘的成熟相耦合，髓鞘是一种发育可塑性调节剂。区域发育轨迹的时空可变性沿着从 8 岁到 18 岁的分层感觉运动联合皮质轴组织。感觉运动联合皮质轴进一步捕获了青少年居住环境与内在 fMRI 活动之间的关联变化；关联表明，在青春期中期，环境劣势对成熟大脑的影响在这个轴上差异最大。这些结果揭示了一个分层的神经发育轴，并深入了解了人类皮质可塑性的进展。
