ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
The natural axis of transmitter receptor distribution in the human cerebral cortex.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 71 papers.
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71 citing papers in PubMed.
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- Cortical Type: The Basis for a Modern Neurodevelopmental Synthesis (Ontogeny, Phylogeny, Synaptic Connectivity) of the Human Cerebral Cortex.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2026Review
- The biological role of local and global fMRI BOLD signal variability in multiscale human brain organization.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Cellular and molecular associations with intrinsic brain organization.Nature communications · 2025Article
- cuBNM: GPU-Accelerated Brain Network Modeling.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Cellular and molecular associations with intrinsic brain organization.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Topographic Variation in Human Neurotransmitter Receptor Densities Explains Differences in Intracranial EEG Spectra.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Disentangling metabolic and neurovascular timescales supporting cognitive processes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Large-scale maps of altered cortical dynamics in early-stage psychosis are related to GABAergic and glutamatergic neurotransmission.Science advances · 2025Article
- Distinct genetic underpinnings of inter-individual differences in the sensorimotor-association axis of cortical organisation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Cellular basis for cortical network aging in primates.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
11 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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6 authors.
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Abstract
Transmitter receptors constitute a key component of the molecular machinery for intercellular communication in the brain. Recent efforts have mapped the density of diverse transmitter receptors across the human cerebral cortex with an unprecedented level of detail. Here, we distill these observations into key organizational principles. We demonstrate that receptor densities form a natural axis in the human cerebral cortex, reflecting decreases in differentiation at the level of laminar organization and a sensory-to-association axis at the functional level. Along this natural axis, key organizational principles are discerned: progressive molecular diversity (increase of the diversity of receptor density); excitation/inhibition (increase of the ratio of excitatory-to-inhibitory receptor density); and mirrored, orderly changes of the density of ionotropic and metabotropic receptors. The uncovered natural axis formed by the distribution of receptors aligns with the axis that is formed by other dimensions of cortical organization, such as the myelo- and cytoarchitectonic levels. Therefore, the uncovered natural axis constitutes a unifying organizational feature linking multiple dimensions of the cerebral cortex, thus bringing order to the heterogeneity of cortical organization.
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