OPM-MEG reveals protracted maturation of visual phase-amplitude coupling from early childhood to adulthood
- 1Hospital for Sick Children
Abstract
Cross-frequency coupling describes interactions between neural ensembles operating at different frequency bands, and has been proposed to underlie coordination of brain activity over multiple temporal and spatial scales. Phase amplitude coupling (PAC) describes modulation of the amplitude of high-frequency oscillations by the phase of low frequency oscillations. MEG work in adults has demonstrated that alpha-gamma PAC may support visual perception. However, very little work has investigated visual PAC in children, or the development of this process between childhood and adulthood. Here we investigated the development of PAC in a sample of 101 individuals, comprising 50 children (aged 2-13 years) and 51 adults (21-34 years). Participants completed a passive visual stimulation paradigm while neural responses were recorded using a wearable whole-head OPM-MEG system. Sensor-level data were spatially resolved to visual cortex, and we quantified coupling between the phase of low-frequency oscillations (5-13 Hz) and the amplitude of broadband gamma oscillations (28-100 Hz) in each participant. In the adult data, we identified a cluster of phase-amplitude frequency pairs (phase: 7-11 Hz, amplitude: 52-66 Hz) in which there was strong evidence for an increase in PAC following stimulus presentation relative to baseline. Within this cluster, the magnitude of stimulus-induced PAC was positively correlated with age across all participants. Meanwhile, we did not see credible evidence for visual PAC at any frequency pair(s) within the child group. These results suggest that, alongside well-documented developmental changes in band-specific oscillatory power and connectivity, visual PAC represents a distinct functional process which matures with age.
Related
- Delayed maturation of hippocampal trisynaptic circuitry underlies the protracted development of episodic-like memory
- A systematic review of the maturation of selected cortical auditory event-related potentials in passive paradigms: Developmental changes from infancy to early adulthood
- Regional similarity to male-typical brain architecture links childhood ADHD to neurophysiological aging in later adulthood
- Tooth wear and socioeconomic status in childhood and adulthood: Findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies
- Development of cortical auditory processing and its association with speech understanding from childhood to adulthood
BibTeX
@misc{bailey2026opmmeg,
title = {{OPM-MEG reveals protracted maturation of visual phase-amplitude coupling from early childhood to adulthood}},
author = {L. M. Bailey and N. Rhodes and R. A. Seymour and M. J. Brookes and M. J. Taylor},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.08.749145},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.08.749145v1},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - OPM-MEG reveals protracted maturation of visual phase-amplitude coupling from early childhood to adulthood
AU - L. M. Bailey
AU - N. Rhodes
AU - R. A. Seymour
AU - M. J. Brookes
AU - M. J. Taylor
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.08.749145
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.08.749145v1
AB - Cross-frequency coupling describes interactions between neural ensembles operating at different frequency bands, and has been proposed to underlie coordination of brain activity over multiple temporal and spatial scales. Phase amplitude coupling (PAC) describes modulation of the amplitude of high-frequency oscillations by the phase of low frequency oscillations. MEG work in adults has demonstrated that alpha-gamma PAC may support visual perception. However, very little work has investigated visual PAC in children, or the development of this process between childhood and adulthood. Here we investigated the development of PAC in a sample of 101 individuals, comprising 50 children (aged 2-13 years) and 51 adults (21-34 years). Participants completed a passive visual stimulation paradigm while neural responses were recorded using a wearable whole-head OPM-MEG system. Sensor-level data were spatially resolved to visual cortex, and we quantified coupling between the phase of low-frequency oscillations (5-13 Hz) and the amplitude of broadband gamma oscillations (28-100 Hz) in each participant. In the adult data, we identified a cluster of phase-amplitude frequency pairs (phase: 7-11 Hz, amplitude: 52-66 Hz) in which there was strong evidence for an increase in PAC following stimulus presentation relative to baseline. Within this cluster, the magnitude of stimulus-induced PAC was positively correlated with age across all participants. Meanwhile, we did not see credible evidence for visual PAC at any frequency pair(s) within the child group. These results suggest that, alongside well-documented developmental changes in band-specific oscillatory power and connectivity, visual PAC represents a distinct functional process which matures with age.
ER -