Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has yielded seemingly disparate insights into large-scale organization of the human brain. The brain’s large-scale organization can be divided into two broad categories: zero-lag representations of functional connectivity structure and time-lag representations of traveling wave or propagation structure. In this study, we sought to unify observed phenomena across these two categories in the form of three low-frequency spatiotemporal patterns composed of a mixture of standing and traveling wave dynamics. We showed that a range of empirical phenomena, including functional connectivity gradients, the task-positive/task-negative anti-correlation pattern, the global signal, time-lag propagation patterns, the quasiperiodic pattern and the functional connectome network structure, are manifestations of these three spatiotemporal patterns. These patterns account for much of the global spatial structure that underlies functional connectivity analyses and unifies phenomena in resting-state functional MRI previously thought distinct.

静息态功能磁共振成像 (MRI) 对人脑的大规模组织产生了看似不同的见解。大脑的大规模组织可分为两大类：功能连接结构的零滞后表示和行波或传播结构的时滞表示。在这项研究中，我们试图以三种低频时空模式的形式统一这两个类别中观察到的现象，这些模式由驻波和行波动力学的混合组成。我们展示了一系列经验现象，包括功能连接梯度、任务正/任务负反相关模式、全局信号、时滞传播模式、准周期模式和功能连接组网络结构，是这三种时空模式的表现。这些模式解释了大部分全局空间结构，这些空间结构是功能连接分析的基础，并统一了以前认为不同的静息状态功能 MRI 中的现象。