Spontaneous Brain Regional Dynamics Contribute to Generalizable Brain-Behavior Associations

Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre 

Large-scale MRI datasets have established brain-wide association studies (BWAS) as crucial for mapping individual variability in brain function and behavior. While BWAS has primarily focused on inter-regional connectivity via resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC), intra-regional neural dynamics remain underexplored. Neural variability within regions provides critical insights into brain-behavior relationships, but existing metrics of resting-state regional dynamics (RSRD), such as variability, fluctuation, and correlation, offer fragmented perspectives, risking oversimplification. Data-driven approaches integrating diverse temporal features are essential to fully realize RSRD's potential. Incorporating dynamic elements creates nuanced, individual-specific profiles of brain activity, offering deeper insights into behavior across spatial and temporal scales (Petersen et al., 2024). Using the hctsa toolbox (Fulcher & Jones, 2017), we analyzed three independent lifespan datasets (N=30,138; ages 8–82) and developed RSRD profiles capturing multifaceted temporal patterns of regional brain activity. Our goals (Fig. 1A) were to construct robust profiles, identify behavior-specific features, and evaluate their generalizability across populations and life stages.