Stimulated human cortical waves: spatiotemporal dynamics across development

Dominant traveling cortical plane waves in single-pulse iEEG CCEP data align with white matter fibre tract orientations, and wave velocity singular points cluster near DMN hubs.

• Why it matters: Wave dynamics at high spatiotemporal resolution in humans are poorly characterized, limiting how structural constraints and functional-network organization shape cortical propagation.
• What they did: Using a manifold-based optical flow method on open-access iEEG CCEP recordings, the study built high-temporal-resolution cortical neural activity velocity fields and applied spatiotemporal mode decomposition.
• The result: Velocity field singular points (sources, sinks, spirals, saddles) are non-randomly distributed and linked to DMN hubs, while wave speed shows a nonlinear relationship with age paralleling white matter maturation and aging.

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