Dissecting whole-brain conduction delays through MRI microstructural measures

Network models based on structural connectivity have been increasingly used as the blueprint for large-scale simulations of the human brain. As the nodes of this network are distributed through the cortex and interconnected by white matter pathways with different characteristics, modeling the associated conduction delays becomes important. The goal of this study is to estimate and characterize these delays directly from the brain structure. To achieve this, we leveraged microstructural measures from a combination of advanced magnetic resonance imaging acquisitions and computed the main determinants of conduction velocity, namely axonal diameter and myelin content. Using the model proposed by Rushton, we used these measures to calculate the conduction velocity and estimated the associated delays using tractography. We observed that both the axonal diameter and conduction velocity distributions presented a rather constant trend across different connection lengths, with resulting delays that scale linearly with the connection length. Relying on insights from graph theory and Kuramoto simulations, our results support the approximation of constant conduction velocity but also show path- and region-specific differences. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00429-021-02358-w.