Global and structured waves of rs-fMRI signal identified as putative propagation of spontaneous neural activity

Conventional resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) studies have focused on investigating the synchronous neural activity in functionally relevant distant regions that are termed as resting-state networks. On the other hand, less is known about the spatiotemporal dynamics of the spontaneous activity of the brain. By examining the characteristics of both rs-fMRI and vascular time lag that was measured using dynamic susceptibility contrast-enhanced perfusion weighted imaging, the present study identifies several structured propagation of the rs-fMRI signal as putative neural streams. Temporal shift of both rs-fMRI and perfusion imaging data in each voxel compared with the averaged whole-brain signal was computed using cross-correlation analysis. In contrast to the uniformity of the vascular time lag across subjects, whole-brain rs-fMRI time lag was estimated to be composed of three independent components. After regression of vascular time lag, independent component analysis was applied to rs-fMRI data. The putative neural streams showed slow propagation of the signal from task-positive regions to main nodes of the default mode network, which may represent a mode of transmission underlying the interactions among the resting-state networks.