Correspondence between resting state activity and brain gene expression

The relationship between functional brain activity and gene expression has not been fully explored in the human brain. Here, we identify significant correlations between gene expression in the brain and functional activity by comparing fractional Amplitude of Low Frequency Fluctuations (fALFF) from two independent human fMRI resting state datasets to regional cortical gene expression from a newly generated RNA-seq dataset and two additional gene expression datasets to obtain robust and reproducible correlations. We find significantly more genes correlated with fALFF than expected by chance, and identify specific genes correlated with the imaging signals in multiple expression datasets in the default mode network. Together, these data support a population-level relationship between regional steady state brain gene expression and resting state brain activity.\n\nHIGHLIGHTSO_LIGene expression is correlated with resting state activity in human brain.\nC_LIO_LISpecific genes are correlated with activity in the default mode network.\nC_LIO_LIActivity-correlated genes are enriched in neurons.\nC_LIO_LIRegionally-patterned gene expression is enriched for activity-correlated genes.\nC_LI