Propagating Cortical Waves Coordinate Sensory Encoding and Memory Retrieval in The Human Brain

Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre 

Complex behavior entails a balance between taking in sensory information from the environment and utilizing previously learned internal information. Experiments in mice have shown that the brain alternates between two modes facilitating visual coding and memory processes respectively, with transitions marked by stereotypical neuronal spiking cascades spanning forebrain structures (Liu et al., 2021; Yang et al., 2023). In humans, multi-second global brain activity observed with functional MRI (fMRI) has been described as propagating waves, moving from low-order sensory-motor (SM) regions to high-order default mode network (DMN) regions (Gu et al., 2021; Raut et al., 2021). Utilizing large-scale fMRI datasets, we investigated whether the fMRI waves and neuronal spiking cascades are the expression of homologous brain dynamics, and if so, whether the alternation between enhanced visual encoding and memory function is similarly across the cycle of fMRI waves in humans.