Unique local gradient-based functional fingerprints enable precisely identifying individual infants over ages
Xinrui Yuan, Dan Hu, Jiale Cheng, Zhengwang Wu, Li Wang, Weili Lin, Gang Li · 2026
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Description
Xinrui Yuan and co-authors show that brain activity patterns can identify individual infants with very high accuracy, in work published in 2026. Adult brain patterns act like fingerprints, but the infant brain changes fast, which makes stable marks hard to find. The team used local gradient features of brain connections from MRI scans.
In more than a hundred infants scanned over time, their method reached about ninety nine percent accuracy in telling infants apart. A standard connection method reached only about seventy percent. The fingerprint areas sat mostly in higher order and sensory networks. Scores also linked modestly to early cognitive performance. The authors say stable individuality exists even amid rapid early brain growth.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Xinrui Yuan, Dan Hu, Jiale Cheng, Zhengwang Wu, Li Wang, Weili Lin, Gang Li |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 77 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |