PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Christina Lubinus
AU  - Joan Orpella
AU  - Anne Keitel
AU  - Helene Gudi-Mindermann
AU  - Andreas K. Engel
AU  - Brigitte Röder
AU  - Johanna M. Rimmele
TI  - Data-driven classification of spectral profiles reveals brain region-specific plasticity
AID  - 10.1101/782979
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 782979
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/12/07/782979.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/12/07/782979.full
AB  - The human brain exhibits rhythms that are characteristic for anatomical areas and presumably involved in perceptual and cognitive processes. Visual deprivation results in behavioral adaptation and cortical reorganization. Whether neuroplasticity-related mechanisms involve altered spectral properties of neural signals and which brain areas are particularly affected, is unknown. We analyzed magnetoencephalography resting state data of congenitally blind and matched sighted individuals. First, using clustering procedures (k-means and Gaussian Mixture Models) we identified brain region-specific spectral clusters. Second, a classifier was employed testing the specificity of the spectral profiles within and the differences between groups. We replicated previously reported findings of area-specific spectral profiles, indicated by high classification performance in the sighted. Additionally, we found high classification performance in the blind, suggesting that area-specific spectral profiles were consistently identified after deprivation-related reorganization. Crucially, in the cross-group classification (sighted vs. blind), several sensory (visual and auditory) and right frontal areas were classified worse compared to the control (within sighted classification) condition. Overall the spectral profiles of these areas showed increased neuronal power in higher frequency bands in the blind compared to the sighted, possibly reflecting acceleration of regionally prevalent brain rhythms. The spectral profiles in areas where group differences were observed correlated with microstructural white matter properties in an extended posterior and bilateral cluster. We provide evidence that visual deprivation-related plasticity particulary alters the spectral profiles of right frontal, visual and auditory brain regions, possibly reflecting increased temporal processing capabilities (auditory, frontal cortices) and changes in the visual inhibitory-excitatory circuits in the blind.