FEATURES OF ACTIVATION OF THE DEFAULT MODE NETWORK IN PEOPLE WITH A HIGH LEVEL OF CHRONIC STRESS

AbstractThe default mode network (DMN) is a group of high-order brain regions recently implicated in processing external naturalistic events, yet it remains unclear what cognitive function it serves. Here we identified the cognitive states predictive of DMN fMRI coactivation. Particularly, we developed a state-fluctuation pattern analysis, matching network coactivations across a short movie with retrospective behavioral sampling of movie events. Network coactivation was selectively correlated with the state of surprise across movie events, compared to all other cognitive states (e.g. emotion, vividness). The effect was exhibited in the DMN, but not dorsal attention or visual networks. Furthermore, surprise was found to mediate DMN coactivations with hippocampus and nucleus accumbens. These unexpected findings point to the DMN as a major hub in high-level prediction-error representations.

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The surprising role of the default mode network in naturalistic perception

Communications Biology ◽

10.1038/s42003-020-01602-z ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Talia Brandman ◽

Rafael Malach ◽

Erez Simony

Keyword(s):

Default Mode Network ◽

Prediction Error ◽

Pattern Analysis ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Default Mode ◽

Cognitive States ◽

Fluctuation Pattern ◽

Unexpected Findings ◽

High Level

AbstractThe default mode network (DMN) is a group of high-order brain regions recently implicated in processing external naturalistic events, yet it remains unclear what cognitive function it serves. Here we identified the cognitive states predictive of DMN fMRI coactivation. Particularly, we developed a state-fluctuation pattern analysis, matching network coactivations across a short movie with retrospective behavioral sampling of movie events. Network coactivation was selectively correlated with the state of surprise across movie events, compared to all other cognitive states (e.g. emotion, vividness). The effect was exhibited in the DMN, but not dorsal attention or visual networks. Furthermore, surprise was found to mediate DMN coactivations with hippocampus and nucleus accumbens. These unexpected findings point to the DMN as a major hub in high-level prediction-error representations.

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Concepts and Compositionality: In Search of the Brain's Language of Thought

Annual Review of Psychology ◽

10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011829 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 71 (1) ◽

pp. 273-303 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Steven M. Frankland ◽

Joshua D. Greene

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

Default Mode Network ◽

Computational Models ◽

Language Of Thought ◽

Default Mode ◽

Episodic Simulation ◽

High Level ◽

The Brain ◽

Language Of Thought Hypothesis

Imagine Genghis Khan, Aretha Franklin, and the Cleveland Cavaliers performing an opera on Maui. This silly sentence makes a serious point: As humans, we can flexibly generate and comprehend an unbounded number of complex ideas. Little is known, however, about how our brains accomplish this. Here we assemble clues from disparate areas of cognitive neuroscience, integrating recent research on language, memory, episodic simulation, and computational models of high-level cognition. Our review is framed by Fodor's classic language of thought hypothesis, according to which our minds employ an amodal, language-like system for combining and recombining simple concepts to form more complex thoughts. Here, we highlight emerging work on combinatorial processes in the brain and consider this work's relation to the language of thought. We review evidence for distinct, but complementary, contributions of map-like representations in subregions of the default mode network and sentence-like representations of conceptual relations in regions of the temporal and prefrontal cortex.

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Default Mode Network : Its Implications in Psychiatry

Bengal Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.51332/bjp.2018.v23.i1.71 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 7-10

Author(s):

Souvik Chakraborty

Keyword(s):

Metabolic Activity ◽

Default Mode Network ◽

Default Network ◽

Directed Attention ◽

Default Mode ◽

School Of Medicine ◽

The Face ◽

Neuro Imaging ◽

High Level ◽

Washington University

The brain’s “default mode network” is among the most rapidly growing neuroscientific topics of the new millennium. Since the appointment of its name in the turn of the millenium (Raichle and others 2001), the default network has garnered considerable interest for its high level of resting metabolic activity, which decreases in the face of externally-directed attention (Minoshima and others 1997; Gusnard and Raichle 2001). Though its presence was anticipated by some Neuro-scientists as early as late 1920s, it was a serendipitous discovery by a group of Neuroradiologists working on functional neuro-imaging at Washington University School of Medicine.

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The gradient model of brain organization in decisions involving 'empathy for pain'

10.1101/2021.11.28.470235 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Karin Labek ◽

Elisa Sittenberger ◽

Valerie Kienhoefer ◽

Luna Rabl ◽

Irene Messina ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Default Mode Network ◽

Functional Characterization ◽

Visual Stimuli ◽

Body Parts ◽

Brain Organization ◽

Default Mode ◽

Cortical Areas ◽

Gradient Model ◽

Empathy For Pain ◽

High Level

Recent meta-analytic studies of social cognition and the functional imaging of empathy have exposed the overlap between their neural substrates and heteromodal association areas. The 'gradient model' of cortical organization proposes a close relationship between these areas and highly connected hubs in the default mode network, a set of cortical areas deactivated by demanding tasks. Here, we used a decision-making task and representational similarity analysis with classic 'empathy for pain' visual stimuli to probe the relationship between high-level representations of imminent pain in others and the high end of the gradient of this model. High-level representations were found to co-localize with task deactivations or the transitions from activations to deactivations. These loci belonged to two groups: those that loaded on the high end of the principal cortical gradient and were associated by meta-analytic decoding with the default mode network, and those that appeared to accompany functional repurposing of somatosensory cortex in the presence of visual stimuli. In contrast to the nonspecific meta-analytic decoding of these loci, low-level representations, such as those of body parts involved in pain or of pain itself, were decoded with matching topics terms. These findings suggest that that task deactivations may set out cortical areas that host high-level representations, but whose functional characterization in terms of simple mappings is unlikely. We anticipate that an increased understanding of the cortical correlates of high-level representations may improve neurobiological models of social interactions and psychopathology.

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