{"id":216606,"date":"2025-06-25T21:03:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T02:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/new-study-reveals-genetic-link-between-brain-criticality-and-human-cognition"},"modified":"2025-06-25T21:03:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T02:03:04","slug":"new-study-reveals-genetic-link-between-brain-criticality-and-human-cognition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/new-study-reveals-genetic-link-between-brain-criticality-and-human-cognition","title":{"rendered":"New study reveals genetic link between brain criticality and human cognition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-study-reveals-genetic-link-between-brain-criticality-and-human-cognition2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A new study has revealed compelling evidence that brain criticality\u2014a dynamic balance between neural excitation and inhibition\u2014has a strong genetic foundation and is associated with cognitive performance. The research was <a href=\"https:\/\/pnas.org\/doi\/10.1073\/pnas.2417010122\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> on June 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.<\/p>\n<p>Led by Prof. Liu Ning from the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Prof. Yu Shan from the Institute of Automation of CAS, the team analyzed resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) data from the Human Connectome Project S1200 release. The dataset included 250 <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/monozygotic+twins\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">monozygotic twins<\/a>, 142 <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/dizygotic+twins\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">dizygotic twins<\/a>, and 437 unrelated individuals, providing a robust framework for examining the heritability of critical brain dynamics.<\/p>\n<p>The results showed that brain criticality is significantly influenced by <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/genetic+factors\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">genetic factors<\/a>, with stronger genetic effects observed in primary sensory cortices compared to higher-order association regions. These findings suggest that the capacity of the brain to maintain near-critical dynamics\u2014previously associated with optimal information processing and cognitive flexibility\u2014is, to a substantial degree, inherited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new study has revealed compelling evidence that brain criticality\u2014a dynamic balance between neural excitation and inhibition\u2014has a strong genetic foundation and is associated with cognitive performance. The research was published on June 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Led by Prof. Liu Ning from the Institute of Biophysics of the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}