Large-scale cortical travelling waves predict localized future cortical signals

Predicting future brain signal is highly sought-after, yet difficult to achieve. To predict the future phase of cortical activity at localized ECoG and MEG recording sites, we exploit its predominant, large-scale, spatiotemporal dynamics. The dynamics are extracted from the brain signal through Fourier analysis and principal components analysis (PCA) only, and cast in a data model that predicts future signal at each site and frequency of interest. The dominant eigenvectors of the PCA that map the large-scale patterns of past cortical phase to future ones take the form of smoothly propagating waves over the entire measurement array. In ECoG data from 3 subjects and MEG data from 20 subjects collected during a self-initiated motor task, mean phase prediction errors were as low as 0.5 radians at local sites, surpassing state-of-the-art methods of within-time-series or event-related models. Prediction accuracy was highest in delta to beta bands, depending on the subject, was more accurate during episodes of high global power, but was not strongly dependent on the time-course of the task. Prediction results did not require past data from the to-be-predicted site. Rather, best accuracy depended on the availability in the model of long wavelength information. The utility of large-scale, low spatial frequency traveling waves in predicting future phase activity at local sites allows estimation of the error introduced by failing to account for irreducible trajectories in the activity dynamics.Author summary: Prediction is an important step in scientific progress, often leading to real-world applications. Prediction of future brain activity could lead to improvements in detecting driver and pilot error or real-time brain testing using transcranial magnetic stimulation. Previous studies have either supposed that the ‘noise’ level in the cortex is high, setting the prediction bar rather low; or used localized measurements to predict future activity, with modest success. A long-held but controversial hypothesis is that the cortex is best characterized as a multi-scale dynamic structure, in which the flow of activity at one scale, say, the area responsible for motor control, is inextricably tied to activity at smaller and larger scales, for example within a cortical column and the whole cortex. We test this hypothesis by analyzing large-scale traveling waves of cortical activity. Like waves arriving on a beach, the ongoing wave motion allows better prediction of future activity compared to monitoring the local rise and fall; in the best cases the future wave cycle is predicted with as low as 20° average error angle. The prediction techniques developed for the present research rely on mathematics related to quantifying large-scale weather patterns or analysis of fluid dynamics.