Nature Human Behaviour, 30 October, 2025, DOI：https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02332-0

Spontaneous brain regional dynamics contribute to generalizable brain–behaviour associations

Xiaohan Tian, Yingjie Peng, Shu Liu, Golia Shafiei, Meng Wang, Yuqing Sun, Jing Lou, Junxing Xian, Ke Hu, Yini He, Qi Wang, Chaoyue Ding, Tian Gao, Shangzheng Huang, Kaixin Li, Qi Wang, Xi-Nian Zuo, Zhanjun Zhang, Ang Li & Bing Liu

Abstract

Spontaneous brain activity is fundamental to understanding the neural basis of inter-individual differences, making its characterization central to brain-wide association studies. While inter-regional coupling patterns have been extensively studied, intra-regional dynamics remain largely unexplored. Here, analysing data from four neuroimaging cohorts (ages 8–82?years; N?=?30,148), we extracted ~5,000 time-series features from resting-state haemodynamic signals across 271 brain regions, offering a comprehensive characterization of intra-regional dynamics. We identified a reliable subset that serves as an individual-specific ‘barcode’, capturing multifaceted dynamic dimensions that stably reflect inter-individual variation across datasets. These barcodes linked nonlinear autocorrelations in unimodal regions to substance use traits and random walk dynamics in higher-order networks to general cognitive abilities. Importantly, these brain–behaviour associations generalized across life stages and populations, with substance use showing age-specific variation and cognition exhibiting consistent patterns across age groups. This work advances large-scale, generalizable brain-wide association studies by highlighting the potential of intra-regional dynamics.

Article link：https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02332-0