Spontaneous cortical activity transiently organises into frequency specific phase-coupling networks

By Diego Vidaurre, Laurence T. Hunt, Andrew J. Quinn, Benjamin A. E. Hunt, Matthew J. Brookes, Anna Christina Nobre, Mark William Woolrich. Nature Communications, 2017

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Frequency-specific oscillations and phase-coupling of neuronal populations are essential mechanisms for the coordination of activity between brain areas during cognitive tasks. Therefore, the ongoing activity ascribed to the different functional brain networks should also be able to reorganise and coordinate via similar mechanisms. We develop a novel method for identifying large-scale phase-coupled network dynamics and show that resting networks in magnetoencephalography are well characterised by visits to short-lived transient brain states, with spatially distinct patterns of oscillatory power and coherence in specific frequency bands. Brain states are identified for sensory, motor networks and higher-order cognitive networks. The cognitive networks include a posterior alpha (8–12 Hz) and an anterior delta/theta range (1–7 Hz) network, both exhibiting high power and coherence in areas that correspond to posterior and anterior subdivisions of the default mode network. Our results show that large-scale cortical phase-coupling networks have characteristic signatures in very specific frequency bands, possibly reflecting functional specialisation at different intrinsic timescales. Coordination of neural activity between distant brain areas is necessary for cognition. Here, the authors report using MEG that various brain networks show dynamic phase coupling through specific frequency bands in the alpha and delta/theta range transiently during the resting state.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9ff37413eae7f38cab90f7c5a06e59d136387847

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