White matter functional gradients and their formation in adolescence

Jingwen Zhu, Daniel Margulies, Anqi Qiu

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

Abstract

It is well known that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a widely used tool for studying brain activity. Recent research has shown that fluctuations in fMRI data can reflect functionally meaningful patterns of brain activity within the white matter. We leveraged resting-state fMRI from an adolescent population to characterize large-scale white matter functional gradients and their formation during adolescence. The white matter showed gray-matter-like unimodal-to-transmodal and sensorimotor-to-visual gradients with specific cognitive associations and a unique superficial-to-deep gradient with nonspecific cognitive associations. We propose two mechanisms for their formation in adolescence. One is a "function-molded"mechanism that may mediate the maturation of the transmodal white matter via the transmodal gray matter. The other is a "structure-root"mechanism that may support the mutual mediation roles of the unimodal and transmodal white matter maturation during adolescence. Thus, the spatial layout of the white matter functional gradients is in concert with the gray matter functional organization. The formation of the white matter functional gradients may be driven by brain anatomical wiring and functional needs.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)10770-10783
Number of pages14
JournalCerebral Cortex
Volume33
Issue number21
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 19 Sept 2023

Keywords

  • brain functional organization
  • gray matter functional gradients
  • resting-state fMRI
  • sensorimotor-to-visual gradient
  • superficial-to-deep gradient
  • unimodal-to-transmodal gradient

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

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