Fig. 1: One-month post-stroke analysis of intrinsic neural timescales.

A Resting-state fMRI data were collected from a cohort of 15 stroke patients and age-matched healthy controls. Recruited stroke patients (n = 15) underwent five follow-up fMRI scans approximately every 30–40 days over 6 months post-stroke. B Brain parcellation comprising 32 regions of interest (ROIs) organized into 8 functional networks—Default Mode Network (DMN), Sensorimotor Network (SMN), Visual Network (VIS), Salience Network (SAN), Language Network (LN), Frontoparietal Network (FPN), Dorsal Attention Network (DAN), and Cerebellar Network (CE)—was utilized to extract regional BOLD time series. C Intrinsic neural timescales were estimated by calculating the area under the curve in which the autocorrelation function (ACF) is positive. Compared to healthy controls, 1-month post-stroke patients (PAT1) exhibited significantly longer INT both globally, for the whole brain (D, t = 8.23, p < 0.0001, Welch’s t-test, FDR corrected) and within specific functional networks (E, see Table 1 for detailed statistics). Each dot represents one subject. **** indicates p < 0.0001 (FDR-corrected). F Hierarchy of intrinsic neural timescales are also disrupted after a stroke, compared to healthy controls (Spearman’s rho = −0.90, p < 0.0001). The upper and lower error bars display the largest and smallest values within 1.5 times IR above the 75th percentile and below the 25th percentile, respectively. Abbreviations: INT intrinsic neural timescales, PAT1 15 patients recruited and scanned for the first time (first follow-up, approximately 20–30 days post-stroke). CTR: the 15 healthy controls. Data presented in (D–F) are derived specifically from the first follow-up (PAT1).