Possible links between the lag structure in visual cortex and visual streams using fMRI

Conventional functional connectivity analysis using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measures the correlation of temporally synchronized brain activities between brain regions. Lag structure analysis relaxes the synchronicity constraint of fMRI signals, and thus, this approach might be better at explaining functional connectivity. However, the sources of the lag structure in fMRI are primarily unknown. Here, we applied lag structure analysis to the human visual cortex to identify the possible sources of lag structure. A total of 1,250 fMRI data from two independent databases were considered. We explored the temporal lag patterns between the central and peripheral visual fields in early visual cortex and those in two visual pathways of dorsal and ventral streams. We also compared the lag patterns with effective connectivity obtained with dynamic causal modeling. We found that the lag structure in early visual cortex flows from the central to peripheral visual fields and the order of the lag structure flow was consistent with the order of signal flows in visual pathways. The effective connectivity computed by dynamic causal modeling exhibited similar patterns with the lag structure results. This study suggests that signal flows in visual streams are possible sources of the lag structure in human visual cortex.