The relationship between individual variation in macroscale functional gradients and distinct aspects of ongoing thought

Mckeown, Brontë; Strawson, Will H; Wang, Hao-Ting; Karapanagiotidis, Theodoros; Wael, Reinder Vos de; Benkarim, Oualid; Turnbull, Adam; Margulies, Daniel S.; Jefferies, Elizabeth; McCall, Cade; Bernhardt, Boris C.; Smallwood, Jonathan

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117072

Cited by 62 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Since this occurred across multiple different contexts, including complex external tasks, this pattern is inconsistent with views on the DMN as facilitating purely automatic ( Shamloo and Helie, 2016 ), social ( Jenkins, 2019 ), or self-relevant ( van der Linden et al, 2020 ) processes. Instead, these results are consistent with the notion that certain regions of the DMN play a role in ongoing experience that is linked to “how” experiences emerge or unfold ( Leech and Smallwood, 2019 ), possibly reflecting a role of the DMN in supporting more integrated forms of cognition ( Mckeown et al, 2020 ). It will also be important to determine the extent to which different thought patterns recruit the DMN as a whole or instead whether different mental states fractionate the “canonical” DMN, creating subnetworks that are engaged in different types of cognitive state.…”

Section: Implications and Future Directionssupporting

confidence: 83%

The neural correlates of ongoing conscious thought

et al. 2021

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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.

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Section: Implications and Future Directionssupporting

confidence: 83%

The neural correlates of ongoing conscious thought

et al. 2021

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“…24,59 The coupling patterns of primary sensory/motor regions with association networks, including DMN and FPCN, have previously been linked to individual differences in specific contents of experience during mind wandering. 27,28 Within-DMN connectivity contributed both positively and negatively to the SITUT-CPM, consistent with evidence for within-DMN functional heterogeneity. 60,76 Prior research suggests that individual differences in trait mind wandering are both positively and negatively associated with within-DMN functional connectivity.…”

Section: Neural Basis Of Mind Wanderingsupporting

confidence: 71%

Generalizable prediction of stimulus-independent, task-unrelated thought from functional brain networks

Kucyi

Esterman

Capella

et al. 2021

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Neural substrates of “mind wandering” have been widely reported, yet experiments have varied in their contexts and their definitions of this psychological phenomenon, limiting generalizability. We aimed to develop and test the generalizability, specificity, and clinical relevance of a functional brain network-based marker for a well-defined feature of mind wandering—stimulus-independent, task-unrelated thought (SITUT). Combining functional MRI (fMRI) with online experience sampling in healthy adults, we defined a connectome-wide model of inter-regional coupling—dominated by default-frontoparietal control subnetwork interactions—that predicted trial-by-trial SITUT fluctuations within novel individuals. Model predictions generalized in an independent sample of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) adults. In three additional resting-state fMRI studies (total n=1,115), including healthy and ADHD populations, we demonstrated further prediction of SITUT (at modest effect sizes) defined using multiple trait-level and in-scanner measures. Our findings suggest that SITUT is represented within a common pattern of brain network interactions across time scales, populations, and contexts.

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“…Our findings are more consistent with recent findings that DMN and MDN have functional similarities, despite their well-documented activation differences. For example, these brain regions can have similar representational formats (González-García et al, 2018) and they occupy adjacent positions on the principal gradient of connectivity, which explains the most variance in a decomposition of resting-state fMRI (Margulies et al, 2016;Mckeown et al, 2020) An adequate account of the role of DMN in semantic cognition needs to explain the stronger activation typically seen in this network when the meanings of inputs are well-aligned with recent experience or long-term memory, as well as the sensitivity of this network to changing task goals. One possibility is provided by views that envisage DMN regions as "integrative hubs" (Braga et al, 2013), drawing together inputs from highly diverse networks, including unimodal regions relevant to the varied features of concrete concepts (e.g., colour, shape, size) (Margulies et al, 2016;Lanzoni et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Both default and multiple-demand regions represent semantic goal information

Wang

Gao

Smallwood

et al. 2020

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AbstractWhile the multiple-demand network plays an established role in cognitive flexibility, the role of default mode network is more poorly understood. In this study, we used a semantic feature matching task combined with multivoxel pattern decoding to test contrasting functional accounts. By one view, default mode and multiple-demand networks have opposing roles in cognition; consequently, while multiple-demand regions can decode current goal information, semantically-relevant default network regions might decode conceptual similarity irrespective of task demands. Alternatively, default mode regions might show sensitivity to changing task demands like multiple-demand regions, consistent with evidence that both networks dynamically alter their patterns of connectivity depending on the context. Our task required participants to integrate conceptual knowledge with changing task goals, such that successive decisions were based on different features of the items (colour, shape and size). This allowed us to simultaneously decode semantic category and current goal information using a whole-brain searchlight decoding approach. As expected, multiple-demand regions represented information about the currently-relevant conceptual feature, yet similar decoding results were found in default mode network regions, including angular gyrus and posterior cingulate cortex. Semantic category irrespective of task demands could be decoded in lateral occipital cortex, but not in most regions of default mode network. These results show that conceptual information related to the current goal dominates the multivariate response within default mode network. In this way, default mode network nodes support flexible memory retrieval by modulating their response to suit active task goals, alongside regions of multiple-demand cortex.Significance StatementWe tested contrasting accounts of default mode network (DMN) function using multivoxel pattern analysis. By one view, semantically-relevant parts of DMN represent conceptual similarity, irrespective of task context. By an alternative view, DMN tracks changing task demands. Our semantic feature matching task required participants to integrate conceptual knowledge with task goals, such that successive decisions were based on different features of the items. We demonstrate that DMN regions can decode current goal, alongside multiple-demand regions traditionally associated with cognitive control. The successful decoding of goal information plus largely absent category decoding effects within DMN indicates that this network supports flexible semantic cognition.

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The relationship between individual variation in macroscale functional gradients and distinct aspects of ongoing thought

Cited by 62 publications

References 47 publications

The neural correlates of ongoing conscious thought

The neural correlates of ongoing conscious thought

Generalizable prediction of stimulus-independent, task-unrelated thought from functional brain networks

Both default and multiple-demand regions represent semantic goal information

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