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Connectional axis of individual functional variability: Patterns, structural correlates, and relevance for development and cognition

Year: 2025
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: 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.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2420228122
Authors: Hang Yang, Guowei Wu, Yaoxin Li, Xiaoyu Xu, Jing Cong, Haoshu Xu, Yiyao Ma, Yang Li, Runsen Chen, Adam Pines, Ting Xu, Valerie J. Sydnor, Theodore D. Satterthwaite, Zaixu Cui
Institutions: Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Michigan, Beijing Normal University, State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Stanford Medicine, Stanford University, Child Mind Institute, University of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, University of Pennsylvania
Language: English
Open Access status: hybrid
Funders: Washington University in St. Louis, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, National Institutes of Health, McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience, Beijing Nova Program, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research
Awards: G2705118029, G3158752100, Mapping the Human Connectome: Structure, Function, and Heritability, G3631106536, G3848525072, G4192875361, G6389824285, G8299918676, G9000068338, G9000089182, Training for Transformative Discovery in Psychiatry
OpenAlex ID: W4408570264
FWCI: 9.397
Cites: 152
Cited by: 20
Related to: 10