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Poster B140 in Poster Session B - Thursday, August 8, 2024, 1:30 – 3:30 pm, Johnson Ice Rink

Functional significance of shared brain state across various cognitive tasks

Ayumu Yamashita1 (), Masataka Sawayama1, Kaoru Amano1; 1Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, University of Tokyo

Cognitive neuroscience aims to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive functions. Classical fMRI studies have identified them by using specifically designed experimental tasks. Recently, a collaborative effort to establish a common ontology, has enabled a broader understanding of cognitive functions beyond individual tasks. Despite progress, comprehensive insights of functions like sustained attention defined by task performance, remain elusive due to variable brain activity patterns linked to performance across tasks. Recent computational advances offer data-driven estimation of brain states, independent of task performance. Studies using these methods frequently identify consistent brain states of the default mode network (DMN) and dorsal attention network (DAN), though their task-specific relevance and representation of cognitive functions are not fully understood. In this study, we estimated brain states in a data-driven manner using open fMRI data from about 100 participants who engaged in diverse cognitive tasks. Our findings indicate that both DMN and DAN states are common across tasks, with the DMN state associated with faster and more stable reaction times. However, accuracy differed by task and condition, suggesting that DMN and DAN may represent automatic processes and cognitive control, respectively. These data-driven approaches enable a unified analysis across tasks, enhancing our general understanding of cognitive functions.

Keywords: cognitive neuroscience fMRI data-driven approach brain state 

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