SUMMARY
Understanding the architectural principles that shape human brain networks is a major challenge for systems neuroscience. We hypothesize that the centrality of the different brain circuits in the human connectome is a product of their embryogenic age, such that early-born nodes should become stronger hubs than those born later. Using a human brain segmentation based on embryogenic age, we observed that nodes’ structural centrality correlated with their embryogenic age, fully confirming our hypothesis. Distinct trends were found at different resolutions on a functional level. The difference in embryonic age between nodes inversely correlated with the probability of existence of links and their weights. Brain transcriptomic analysis revealed strong associations between embryonic age, structure-function centrality, and the expression of genes related to nervous system development, synapse regulation and human neurological diseases. Our results highlight two key principles regarding the wiring of the human brain, “preferential age attachment” and “the older gets richer”.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
change of the title statistical analysis including spatial dependencies on brain maps re-normalization of AHBA gene map threshold on functional connectivity weights choice of only one metric for network centrality (eigenvector centrality) given centrality metrics redundancy gene expression dependency and spatial dependency in GWAS analysis (replacing the previous binomial distribution) deepened explanation on the relationship between fundamental morphogenic units (FMUs) and the adult brain circuits replaced GWAS Autism Spectrum Disorder gene list (previous version was wrong)