Fig. 5: Structural gradients and structure–function coupling across the lifespan.
From: Functional hierarchy of the human neocortex across the lifespan
a, Group-level structural gradients (G1–G3) derived from individual-specific morphometric similarity networks (MSNs) constructed from cortical thickness, myelination and microstructural indices. b, Functional-gradient template axes (SA, VS and MR). c, Structure–function coupling across the lifespan, quantified as cosine similarity between each individual’s structural and functional gradients after Procrustes alignment (G1/SA, G2/VS, G3/MR; n = 3, 431 individuals). d, Structural-gradient range across the lifespan (inter-vigintile range; n = 3, 431 gradient sets); horizontal bars denote 95% HDIs for the age of the peak of each fitted trajectory. e, Functional-gradient range across the lifespan (inter-vigintile range; n = 3, 972 gradient sets); horizontal bars denote 95% HDIs for the age of the peak of each fitted trajectory. f, Dispersion of structural gradients across the lifespan (mean Euclidean distance to the embedding centroid; n = 3, 431 gradient sets). In c–f, solid lines show population-level GAMM fits of each metric versus age with a random intercept for cohort. Shaded ribbons indicate 95% pointwise confidence intervals of the fitted mean. HDIs in d,e were computed from 20,000 draws of the smooth-term coefficient posterior and summarize uncertainty in the age at which the fitted trajectory attains its maximum.
