Intrinsic timescale develops hierarchically from sensorimotor to association cortex in youth and stabilizes in adulthood
Golia Shafiei, Joëlle Bagautdinova, Valerie J. Sydnor, Dani S. Bassett, Deanna M. Barch, Matthew Cieslak, Yong Fan, Elizabeth Flook, Alexandre R. Franco, Gregory Kiar, Audrey C. Luo, Michael P. Milham · 2026
Read Intrinsic timescale develops hierarchically from sensorimotor to association cortex in youth and stabilizes in adulthood by Golia Shafiei, Joëlle Bagautdinova, Valerie J. Sydnor, Dani S. Bassett, Deanna M. Barch, Matthew Cieslak, Yong Fan, Elizabeth Flook, Alexandre R. Franco, Gregory Kiar, Audrey C. Luo, Michael P. Milham (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13638041.txt.
Description
Golia Shafiei and eighteen colleagues chart how the brain's processing tempo matures from childhood into adulthood. Each brain region integrates signals over its own time window, its intrinsic timescale, short in sensorimotor areas and long in association areas. The team estimated timescales in two youth datasets with well over a thousand participants aged eight to twenty-two, then checked an independent adult dataset for contrast.
Development followed the same ranking seen across the cortex. Timescale patterns changed along the very axis that runs from sensorimotor to association cortex, the same axis that structures the adult brain. Adult data showed the pattern settled, confirming the youth changes reflect growth rather than noise. Both youth samples agreeing strengthens the claim. The authors present the timescale as a principled sign of how the brain matures in ranked order, tying development directly to the cortex's geography.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Golia Shafiei, Joëlle Bagautdinova, Valerie J. Sydnor, Dani S. Bassett, Deanna M. Barch, Matthew Cieslak, Yong Fan, Elizabeth Flook, Alexandre R. Franco, Gregory Kiar, Audrey C. Luo, Michael P. Milham |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 56 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |