Adolescent maturation of cortical excitation-inhibition ratio based on individualized biophysical network modeling
- Amin Saberi
- Kevin J. Wischnewski
- Kyesam Jung
- Leon D. Lotter
- H. Lina Schaare
- Tobias Banaschewski
- Gareth J. Barker
- Arun L. W. Bokde
- Sylvane Desrivières
- Herta Flor
- Antoine Grigis
- Hugh Garavan
- Penny Gowland
- Andreas Heinz
- Rüdiger Brühl
- Jean-Luc Martinot
- Marie-Laure Paillère Martinot
- Eric Artiges
- Frauke Nees
- Dimitri Papadopoulos Orfanos
- Hervé Lemaître
- Luise Poustka
- Sarah Hohmann
- Nathalie Holz
- Christian Baeuchl
- Michael N. Smolka
- Nilakshi Vaidya
- Henrik Walter
- Robert Whelan
- Gunter Schumann
- Tomáš Paus
- Juergen Dukart
- Boris C. Bernhardt
- Oleksandr V. Popovych
- Simon B. Eickhoff
- Sofie L. Valk
2025-06-11
The excitation-inhibition ratio is a key functional property of cortical microcircuits which changes throughout an individual’s lifespan. Adolescence is considered a critical period for maturation of excitation-inhibition ratio. This has primarily been observed in animal studies. However, there is limited human in vivo evidence for maturation of excitation-inhibition ratio at the individual level. Here, we developed an individualized in vivo marker of regional excitation-inhibition ratio in human adolescents, estimated using large-scale simulations of biophysical network models fitted to resting-state functional imaging data from both cross-sectional ( n = 752) and longitudinal ( n = 149) cohorts. In both datasets, we found a widespread decrease in excitation-inhibition ratio in association areas, paralleled by an increase or lack of change in sensorimotor areas. This developmental pattern was aligned with multiscale markers of sensorimotor-association differentiation. Although our main findings were robust across alternative modeling configurations, we observed local variations, highlighting the importance of methodological choices for future studies.