Intrinsic timescale develops hierarchically from sensorimotor to association cortex in youth and stabilizes in adulthood

Golia Shafiei, Joëlle Bagautdinova, Valerie J Sydnor, Dani S Bassett, Deanna M Barch, Matthew Cieslak, Yong Fan, Elizabeth Flook, Alexandre R Franco, Gregory Kiar, Audrey C Luo, Michael P Milham, Linden Parkes, Taylor Salo, Leah H Somerville, Tien T Tong, Russell T Shinohara and Theodore D Satterthwaite

PLOS Biology, 2026, vol. 24, issue 9, 1-24

Abstract: Intrinsic timescale is a commonly used measure of spontaneous neural dynamics that quantifies the temporal window of processing of neuronal populations. Intrinsic timescale displays a hierarchical cortical organization across multiple species and imaging modalities, with shorter timescales in sensorimotor cortex compared to association cortex. However, less is known about how intrinsic timescale evolves during human brain development and whether its cortical maturation patterns generalize to independent developmental samples. Here we estimate the intrinsic timescale in two independent cross-sectional datasets of youth (HCPD: n = 565; HBN: n = 729; age range 8–22 years) and investigate its neurodevelopmental patterns. We find that developmental patterns in the intrinsic timescale follow a hierarchical pattern that recapitulates an axis spanning sensorimotor to association cortices (S–A axis). Our analysis of an independent healthy young adult dataset (HCPYA: n = 973, age range 22–37 years) underscores the specificity of these developmental findings, suggesting that the intrinsic timescale develops along the S–A axis in youth and stabilizes in adulthood. Together, these results reveal convergence between major axes of cortical organization and development, highlighting intrinsic timescale as a principled marker of hierarchical brain maturation in youth.Intrinsic timescale reflects the temporal window of neural processing, but how it matures across the human cortex during development remains unclear. This study shows that intrinsic timescale develops hierarchically from sensorimotor to association cortices across youth, recapitulating major cortical organization axes before stabilizing in adulthood.

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pbio00:3004037

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3004037

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