The neural correlates of ongoing conscious thought

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Summary

A core goal in cognitive neuroscience is identifying the physical substrates of the patterns of thought that occupy our daily lives. Contemporary views suggest that the landscape of ongoing experience is heterogeneous and can be influenced by features of both the person and the context. This perspective piece considers recent work that explicitly accounts for both the heterogeneity of the experience and context dependence of patterns of ongoing thought. These studies reveal that systems linked to attention and control are important for organizing experience in response to changing environmental demands. These studies also establish a role of the default mode network beyond task-negative or purely episodic content, for example, implicating it in the level of vivid detail in experience in both task contexts and in spontaneous self-generated experiential states. Together, this work demonstrates that the landscape of ongoing thought is reflected in the activity of multiple neural systems, and it is important to distinguish between processes contributing to how the experience unfolds from those linked to how these experiences are regulated.

Abstract

Cognitive Neuroscience; Psychology; Techniques in Neuroscience

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The organization of the human cerebral cortex estimated by intrinsic functional connectivity.

B. Yeo, Fenna M. Krienen, Jorge Sepulcre … (2011)

Information processing in the cerebral cortex involves interactions among distributed areas. Anatomical connectivity suggests that certain areas form local hierarchical relations such as within the visual system. Other connectivity patterns, particularly among association areas, suggest the presence of large-scale circuits without clear hierarchical relations. In this study the organization of networks in the human cerebrum was explored using resting-state functional connectivity MRI. Data from 1,000 subjects were registered using surface-based alignment. A clustering approach was employed to identify and replicate networks of functionally coupled regions across the cerebral cortex. The results revealed local networks confined to sensory and motor cortices as well as distributed networks of association regions. Within the sensory and motor cortices, functional connectivity followed topographic representations across adjacent areas. In association cortex, the connectivity patterns often showed abrupt transitions between network boundaries. Focused analyses were performed to better understand properties of network connectivity. A canonical sensory-motor pathway involving primary visual area, putative middle temporal area complex (MT+), lateral intraparietal area, and frontal eye field was analyzed to explore how interactions might arise within and between networks. Results showed that adjacent regions of the MT+ complex demonstrate differential connectivity consistent with a hierarchical pathway that spans networks. The functional connectivity of parietal and prefrontal association cortices was next explored. Distinct connectivity profiles of neighboring regions suggest they participate in distributed networks that, while showing evidence for interactions, are embedded within largely parallel, interdigitated circuits. We conclude by discussing the organization of these large-scale cerebral networks in relation to monkey anatomy and their potential evolutionary expansion in humans to support cognition.

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A default mode of brain function.

M Raichle, A MacLeod, A Snyder … (2001)

A baseline or control state is fundamental to the understanding of most complex systems. Defining a baseline state in the human brain, arguably our most complex system, poses a particular challenge. Many suspect that left unconstrained, its activity will vary unpredictably. Despite this prediction we identify a baseline state of the normal adult human brain in terms of the brain oxygen extraction fraction or OEF. The OEF is defined as the ratio of oxygen used by the brain to oxygen delivered by flowing blood and is remarkably uniform in the awake but resting state (e.g., lying quietly with eyes closed). Local deviations in the OEF represent the physiological basis of signals of changes in neuronal activity obtained with functional MRI during a wide variety of human behaviors. We used quantitative metabolic and circulatory measurements from positron-emission tomography to obtain the OEF regionally throughout the brain. Areas of activation were conspicuous by their absence. All significant deviations from the mean hemisphere OEF were increases, signifying deactivations, and resided almost exclusively in the visual system. Defining the baseline state of an area in this manner attaches meaning to a group of areas that consistently exhibit decreases from this baseline, during a wide variety of goal-directed behaviors monitored with positron-emission tomography and functional MRI. These decreases suggest the existence of an organized, baseline default mode of brain function that is suspended during specific goal-directed behaviors.

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The human brain is intrinsically organized into dynamic, anticorrelated functional networks.

M D Fox, A Snyder, J. Vincent … (2005)

During performance of attention-demanding cognitive tasks, certain regions of the brain routinely increase activity, whereas others routinely decrease activity. In this study, we investigate the extent to which this task-related dichotomy is represented intrinsically in the resting human brain through examination of spontaneous fluctuations in the functional MRI blood oxygen level-dependent signal. We identify two diametrically opposed, widely distributed brain networks on the basis of both spontaneous correlations within each network and anticorrelations between networks. One network consists of regions routinely exhibiting task-related activations and the other of regions routinely exhibiting task-related deactivations. This intrinsic organization, featuring the presence of anticorrelated networks in the absence of overt task performance, provides a critical context in which to understand brain function. We suggest that both task-driven neuronal responses and behavior are reflections of this dynamic, ongoing, functional organization of the brain.

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Jonathan Smallwood

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): iScience

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): iScience

Title: iScience

Publisher: Elsevier

ISSN (Electronic): 2589-0042

Publication date PMC-release: 01 February 2021

Publication date Collection: 19 March 2021

Publication date (Electronic): 01 February 2021

Volume: 24

Issue: 3

Electronic Location Identifier: 102132

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Psychology / York Imaging Centre, University of York, York, England

[2 ]University of Sussex, Brighton, England

[3 ]Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, England

[4 ]Department of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales

[5 ]Fudan University, Shanghai, China

[6 ]Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

[7 ]Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et de Psycholinguistique, Department d'Etudes Cognitives, ENS, PSL University, EHESS, CNRS, Paris, France

[8 ]Kings College, London, England

[9 ]Department of Psychology, duke University, Durham, NC, USA

[10 ]Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

[11 ]Centre Nationale de la Researche Scientifique, Institute du Cerveau et de la Moelle epiniere, Paris, France

[12 ]University of Rochester School of Nursing, Rochester, NY, USA

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[∗ ]Corresponding author smallwoodjm@ 123456gmail.com

Article

Publisher Item ID: S2589-0042(21)00100-0 Publisher ID: 102132

DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102132

PMC ID: 7907463

PubMed ID: 33665553

SO-VID: c48eeedd-7dd2-4c4d-a5d1-4b4eb167802d

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This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

The neural correlates of ongoing conscious thought

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NeuroImaging Methods

Most cited references 118

The organization of the human cerebral cortex estimated by intrinsic functional connectivity.

A default mode of brain function.

The human brain is intrinsically organized into dynamic, anticorrelated functional networks.

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