Large-scale Cortical Correlation Structure of Spontaneous Oscillatory Activity

Overview

Journal Nat Neurosci

Date 2012 May 8

PMID 22561454

Citations 445

Authors

Joerg F Hipp

David J Hawellek

Maurizio Corbetta

Markus Siegel

Andreas K Engel

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Little is known about the brain-wide correlation of electrophysiological signals. We found that spontaneous oscillatory neuronal activity exhibited frequency-specific spatial correlation structure in the human brain. We developed an analysis approach that discounts spurious correlation of signal power caused by the limited spatial resolution of electrophysiological measures. We applied this approach to source estimates of spontaneous neuronal activity reconstructed from magnetoencephalography. Overall, correlation of power across cortical regions was strongest in the alpha to beta frequency range (8–32 Hz) and correlation patterns depended on the underlying oscillation frequency. Global hubs resided in the medial temporal lobe in the theta frequency range (4–6 Hz), in lateral parietal areas in the alpha to beta frequency range (8–23 Hz) and in sensorimotor areas for higher frequencies (32–45 Hz). Our data suggest that interactions in various large-scale cortical networks may be reflected in frequency-specific power envelope correlations.

Citing Articles

Objective Detection of Newborn Infant Acute Procedural Pain Using EEG and Machine Learning Algorithms.

Roue J, Avnit A, Gholami B, Haddad W, Anand K Paediatr Neonatal Pain. 2025; 7(1):e70001.

PMID: 40066435 PMC: 11891568. DOI: 10.1002/pne2.70001.

Amyloid-β deposition predicts oscillatory slowing of magnetoencephalography signals and a reduction of functional connectivity over time in cognitively unimpaired adults.

Scheijbeler E, de Haan W, Coomans E, den Braber A, Tomassen J, Ten Kate M Brain Commun. 2025; 7(1):fcaf018.

PMID: 40008329 PMC: 11851009. DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcaf018.

Prestimulus functional connectivity reflects attention orientation in a prospective memory task: A magnetoencephalographic (MEG) study.

Vicentin S, Cona G, Marino M, Bisiacchi P, Mantini D, Arcara G PLoS One. 2025; 20(2):e0319213.

PMID: 39999131 PMC: 11856308. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0319213.

Cortical parcellation optimized for magnetoencephalography with a clustering technique.

Sommariva S, Subramaniyam N, Parkkonen L Sci Rep. 2025; 15(1):6404.

PMID: 39984607 PMC: 11845507. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-90166-1.

Temporal autocorrelation is predictive of age-An extensive MEG time-series analysis.

Stier C, Balestrieri E, Fehring J, Focke N, Wollbrink A, Dannlowski U Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025; 122(8):e2411098122.

PMID: 39977317 PMC: 11873822. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2411098122.

References

Deco G, Jirsa V, McIntosh A . Emerging concepts for the dynamical organization of resting-state activity in the brain. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2010; 12(1):43-56. DOI: 10.1038/nrn2961. View

Kahn I, Andrews-Hanna J, Vincent J, Snyder A, Buckner R . Distinct cortical anatomy linked to subregions of the medial temporal lobe revealed by intrinsic functional connectivity. J Neurophysiol. 2008; 100(1):129-39. PMC: 2493488. DOI: 10.1152/jn.00077.2008. View

Dehaene S, Changeux J . Experimental and theoretical approaches to conscious processing. Neuron. 2011; 70(2):200-27. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.03.018. View

Van Veen B, van Drongelen W, Yuchtman M, Suzuki A . Localization of brain electrical activity via linearly constrained minimum variance spatial filtering. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 1997; 44(9):867-80. DOI: 10.1109/10.623056. View

Buckner R, Sepulcre J, Talukdar T, Krienen F, Liu H, Hedden T . Cortical hubs revealed by intrinsic functional connectivity: mapping, assessment of stability, and relation to Alzheimer's disease. J Neurosci. 2009; 29(6):1860-73. PMC: 2750039. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5062-08.2009. View

Siegel M, Donner T, Oostenveld R, Fries P, Engel A . Neuronal synchronization along the dorsal visual pathway reflects the focus of spatial attention. Neuron. 2008; 60(4):709-19. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2008.09.010. View

Tallon-Baudry C, Bertrand O, Delpuech C, Pernier J . Stimulus specificity of phase-locked and non-phase-locked 40 Hz visual responses in human. J Neurosci. 1996; 16(13):4240-9. PMC: 6579008. View

Fox M, Snyder A, Vincent J, Corbetta M, Van Essen D, Raichle M . The human brain is intrinsically organized into dynamic, anticorrelated functional networks. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005; 102(27):9673-8. PMC: 1157105. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0504136102. View

Battaglia F, Benchenane K, Sirota A, Pennartz C, Wiener S . The hippocampus: hub of brain network communication for memory. Trends Cogn Sci. 2011; 15(7):310-8. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2011.05.008. View

10.

Liu Z, Fukunaga M, de Zwart J, Duyn J . Large-scale spontaneous fluctuations and correlations in brain electrical activity observed with magnetoencephalography. Neuroimage. 2010; 51(1):102-11. PMC: 2847019. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.01.092. View

11.

Logothetis N, Pauls J, Augath M, Trinath T, Oeltermann A . Neurophysiological investigation of the basis of the fMRI signal. Nature. 2001; 412(6843):150-7. DOI: 10.1038/35084005. View

12.

Nir Y, Mukamel R, Dinstein I, Privman E, Harel M, Fisch L . Interhemispheric correlations of slow spontaneous neuronal fluctuations revealed in human sensory cortex. Nat Neurosci. 2009; 11(9):1100-8. PMC: 2642673. DOI: 10.1038/nn.2177. View

13.

Greicius M, Krasnow B, Reiss A, Menon V . Functional connectivity in the resting brain: a network analysis of the default mode hypothesis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002; 100(1):253-8. PMC: 140943. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0135058100. View

14.

Laird A, Eickhoff S, Kurth F, Fox P, Uecker A, Turner J . ALE Meta-Analysis Workflows Via the Brainmap Database: Progress Towards A Probabilistic Functional Brain Atlas. Front Neuroinform. 2009; 3:23. PMC: 2715269. DOI: 10.3389/neuro.11.023.2009. View

15.

Heeger D, Ress D . What does fMRI tell us about neuronal activity?. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2002; 3(2):142-51. DOI: 10.1038/nrn730. View

16.

Mukamel R, Gelbard H, Arieli A, Hasson U, Fried I, Malach R . Coupling between neuronal firing, field potentials, and FMRI in human auditory cortex. Science. 2005; 309(5736):951-4. DOI: 10.1126/science.1110913. View

17.

Logothetis N . What we can do and what we cannot do with fMRI. Nature. 2008; 453(7197):869-78. DOI: 10.1038/nature06976. View

18.

Cordes D, Haughton V, Arfanakis K, Carew J, Turski P, Moritz C . Frequencies contributing to functional connectivity in the cerebral cortex in "resting-state" data. AJNR Am J Neuroradiol. 2001; 22(7):1326-33. PMC: 7975218. View

19.

Laufs H, Krakow K, Sterzer P, Eger E, Beyerle A, Salek-Haddadi A . Electroencephalographic signatures of attentional and cognitive default modes in spontaneous brain activity fluctuations at rest. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003; 100(19):11053-8. PMC: 196925. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1831638100. View

20.

Siegel M, Donner T, Engel A . Spectral fingerprints of large-scale neuronal interactions. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2012; 13(2):121-34. DOI: 10.1038/nrn3137. View