Does the Brain’s E:I Balance Really Shape Long-Range Temporal Correlations? Lessons Learned from 3T MRI

A 3T multimodal MRI study of healthy adults (n=19; 10 female; 21.3 - 53.4 years) was performed to investigate the relationship between fMRI long-range temporal correlations and excitatory/inhibitory balance. The study objective was to determine if the Hurst exponent (H) — an estimate of the self-correlation and signal complexity — of the blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal is correlated with the excitatory-inhibitory (E:I) ratio. E:I has been proposed to serve as a control parameter for brain criticality — the theory that the brain operates near a critical point between order and disorder, optimizing information processing and adaptability — which H is believed to be a measure of. Thus, understanding if H and E:I are correlated would clarify this relationship. Moreover, findings in this domain have implications for neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions with disrupted E:I balance, such as autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease. From a practical perspective, H is easier to accurately measure than E:I ratio at 3T MRI. If H can serve as a proxy for E:I, it may serve as a more practical clinical biomarker for this imbalance and for neuroscience research in general. The study collected functional MRI and magnetic resonance spectroscopy data during rest and movie-watching. H was found to increase with movie-watching compared to rest, while E:I (glutamate/GABA) did not change between conditions. H and E:I were not correlated during either movie-watching or rest. This study represents the first attempt to investigate this connectionin vivoin humans. We conclude that, at 3T and with our particular methodologies, no association was found. We end with lessons learned and suggestions for future research.