Biology subjects

Petruso, F.

Publications and source records attributed to Petruso, F..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Higher-order topology uncovers the multidimensional dynamics of naturalistic emotion

Emotions are thought to emerge from co-activation among distributed brain systems, yet traditional fMRI analyses typically examine localized responses and pairwise connections, potentially overlooking interactions among groups of regions. Here, we use time-resolved higher-order topology to characterize these group interactions during naturalistic viewing of 14 films totaling over 2.5 h, continuously annotated across 50 affective features. The homological scaffold, representing evolving group-level topology, most closely tracks recurrent emotional states and best predicts fine-grained affective profiles. This sensitivity diminishes when emotion is compressed into dimensions of valence, arousal, and power, where pairwise connectivity captures the dominant arousal signal. Across three independent datasets, arousal predictions transfer most robustly through pairwise connectivity, while the relative geometry of broad affective states remains conserved across film narratives despite poor valence generalization. These findings reveal complementary neural representations of emotion: higher-order topology captures fine-grained affective structure, whereas pairwise connectivity provides a portable readout of broad arousal.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Individual connectome fingerprints reveal early stabilization and long-term circuit remodeling after stroke

Stroke is one of the leading causes of global disability, yet the principles governing how focal brain injury disrupts large-scale neural connectivity over time remain poorly understood. Here, we leverage a longitudinal multimodal dataset to track the evolution of individual-specific connectivity patterns, or brain fingerprints, over the first year after stroke. Despite a persistent shift from healthy architecture, we demonstrate that each patients unique functional connectome fingerprint is remarkably resilient and stabilizes within three weeks. This early global stabilization masks a protracted system-specific reorganization of brain circuits, which is characterized by an initial increase in connectivity within sensory and attention systems, followed by a decline across higher-level association networks. A joint structure-function embedding further shows that recovery involves a gradual shift toward the normative healthy range, driven primarily by functional reconfiguration atop a stable structural lesion. Crucially, a multivariate prediction model reveals that early functional signatures selectively forecast long-term impairment in language, executive function, and attention. Together, our results define the post-stroke brain as a shifting but constrained dynamical system, identifying early-stabilized brain patterns as biomarkers for individual recovery profiles and targets for personalized neurorehabilitation.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Maturation-dependent changes in cortical and thalamic activity during slow waves of light sleep: insights from a combined EEG-fMRI study

INTRODUCTIONStudies using scalp EEG have shown that slow waves (0.5-4 Hz), the most prominent hallmark of NREM sleep, undergo relevant changes from childhood to adulthood, mirroring brain structural modifications and the acquisition of cognitive skills. Here we used simultaneous EEG-fMRI to investigate the cortical and subcortical correlates of slow waves in school-age children and determine their relative developmental changes. METHODSWe analyzed data from 14 school-age children with self-limited focal epilepsy of childhood who fell asleep during EEG-fMRI recordings. Brain regions associated with slow-wave occurrence were identified using a voxel-wise regression that also modeled interictal epileptic discharges and sleep spindles. At the group level, a mixed-effects linear model was used. The results were qualitatively compared with those obtained from 2 adolescents with epilepsy and 17 healthy adults. RESULTSSlow waves were associated with hemodynamic-signal decreases in bilateral somatomotor areas. Such changes extended more posteriorly relative to those in adults. Moreover, the involvement of areas belonging to the default mode network changes as a function of age. No significant hemodynamic responses were observed in subcortical structures. However, we identified a significant correlation between age and thalamic hemodynamic changes. CONCLUSIONSPresent findings indicate that the somatomotor cortex may have a key role in slow-wave expression throughout the lifespan. At the same time, they are consistent with a posterior-to-anterior shift in slow-wave distribution mirroring brain maturational changes. Finally, our results suggest that slow-wave changes may not reflect only neocortical modifications but also the maturation of subcortical structures, including the thalamus. Statement of significanceLow spatial resolution of conventional EEG has widely limited the possibility of accurately determining in humans the role of different brain structures in the expression of sleep slow waves throughout development. Here, for the first time, we took advantage of a simultaneous EEG-fMRI approach to accurately describe the cortical and subcortical hemodynamic correlates of sleep slow waves in a sample of 14 school-aged children. In order to elucidate age-dependent changes, we qualitatively compared present findings with those previously obtained in a group of adults. Overall our results have important implications for the understanding of how cortico-cortical and subcortico-cortical interactions shape sleep slow waves across development.

neuroscience↗