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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0eLife

Distinct gradients of cortical architecture capture visual representations and behavior across the lifespan

  • Xiayu Chen1,2
  • Xingyu Liu1,3
  • Patricia Maria Hoyos4
  • Edan Daniel Hertz4
  • Jewelia K Yao4
  • Zonglei Zhen1,5
  • Jesse Gomez4,6
6 affiliations
  1. 1Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
  2. 2BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China
  3. 3Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States
  4. 4Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
  5. 5State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
  6. 6Psychology Department, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
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Abstract

The microstructure of cells within the human cerebral cortex varies across the cortical ribbon, where changes in cytoarchitecture and myeloarchitecture are thought to endow each region of the cortex with its unique function. While fine-scale relative to a cell, these changes at the population level impact architectural properties of the cortex measurable in vivo by noninvasive MRI, such as the thickness and myelin content of the cortex. This raises the question of whether or not we can use these in vivo architectural measures to understand cortical organization, function, and development more broadly. Using the human visual cortex as a test bed, we demonstrated two architectural gradients, one in which cytoarchitecture and myeloarchitecture converge and another in which they diverge. These two gradients underlie the structural and functional topography of the visual cortex, even predicting the presence of new visual representations. Moreover, the two gradients show distinct visual behavior relevance and lifespan trajectory. These findings provide a more general framework for understanding the human cortex, showing that architectural gradients are a measurable fingerprint of functional organization and ontogenetic routines in the human brain.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{chen2026distinct,
  title = {{Distinct gradients of cortical architecture capture visual representations and behavior across the lifespan}},
  author = {Xiayu Chen and Xingyu Liu and Patricia Maria Hoyos and Edan Daniel Hertz and Jewelia K Yao and Zonglei Zhen and Jesse Gomez},
  journal = {eLife},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.7554/elife.102095},
  url = {https://elifesciences.org/articles/102095},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Distinct gradients of cortical architecture capture visual representations and behavior across the lifespan
AU  - Xiayu Chen
AU  - Xingyu Liu
AU  - Patricia Maria Hoyos
AU  - Edan Daniel Hertz
AU  - Jewelia K Yao
AU  - Zonglei Zhen
AU  - Jesse Gomez
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/30
JO  - eLife
DO  - 10.7554/elife.102095
UR  - https://elifesciences.org/articles/102095
AB  - The microstructure of cells within the human cerebral cortex varies across the cortical ribbon, where changes in cytoarchitecture and myeloarchitecture are thought to endow each region of the cortex with its unique function. While fine-scale relative to a cell, these changes at the population level impact architectural properties of the cortex measurable in vivo by noninvasive MRI, such as the thickness and myelin content of the cortex. This raises the question of whether or not we can use these in vivo architectural measures to understand cortical organization, function, and development more broadly. Using the human visual cortex as a test bed, we demonstrated two architectural gradients, one in which cytoarchitecture and myeloarchitecture converge and another in which they diverge. These two gradients underlie the structural and functional topography of the visual cortex, even predicting the presence of new visual representations. Moreover, the two gradients show distinct visual behavior relevance and lifespan trajectory. These findings provide a more general framework for understanding the human cortex, showing that architectural gradients are a measurable fingerprint of functional organization and ontogenetic routines in the human brain.
SN  - 2050-084X
ER  -