Human alpha frequency and expression across the lifespan: a 2,172-participant electrophysiology-MRI atlas

Hand-validated alpha measurements and T1-derived brain structure were brought together in more than 2,000 people from childhood to late adulthood. Alpha frequency and normalized alpha expression followed related, but not identical, courses through life. In the pooled lifespan model, cerebral white-matter volume most closely followed the rate of change of both alpha measures, but this ordering depended on the developmental observations supplied chiefly by HBN. Among adults, ordinary cortical anatomy accounted for little variation in IAF and only modest variation in normalized expression; the latter relation was largely one of cortical scale. These observations provide a guarded anatomical framework for studies of tract length, myelin-sensitive imaging, source localization, and longitudinal change.