Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Feb 15;108(7):3023-8. Epub 2011 Jan 31.
Differential electrophysiological response during rest, self-referential, and non-self-referential tasks in human posteromedial cortex.
Dastjerdi M, Foster BL, Nasrullah S, Rauschecker AM, Dougherty RF, Townsend JD, Chang C, Greicius MD, Menon V, Kennedy DP, Parvizi J.
Laboratory of Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology, Departments of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Psychology, Electrical Engineering, and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Neurosciences Graduate Program and Medical Scientist Training Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
Abstract
The electrophysiological basis for higher brain activity during rest and internally directed cognition within the human default mode network (DMN) remains largely unknown. Here we use intracranial recordings in the human posteromedial cortex (PMC), a core node within the DMN, during conditions of cued rest, autobiographical judgments, and arithmetic processing. We found a heterogeneous profile of PMC responses in functional, spatial, and temporal domains. Although the majority of PMC sites showed increased broad gamma band activity (30-180 Hz) during rest, some PMC sites, proximal to the retrosplenial cortex, responded selectively to autobiographical stimuli. However, no site responded to both conditions, even though they were located within the boundaries of the DMN identified with resting-state functional imaging and similarly deactivated during arithmetic processing. These findings, which provide electrophysiological evidence for heterogeneity within the core of the DMN, will have important implications for neuroimaging studies of the DMN.
Fractionating the Default Mode Network: Distinct Contributions of the Ventral and Dorsal Posterior Cingulate Cortex to Cognitive Control
Robert Leech1, Salwa Kamourieh1, Christian F. Beckmann1,2, and David J. Sharp1
1Computational, Cognitive, and Clinical Neuroimaging Laboratory, Division of Experimental Medicine, Imperial College London, Hammersmith Hospital Campus, London W12 0NN, United Kingdom, and
2Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 9DU, United Kingdom
Correspondence should be addressed to Robert Leech, Computational, Cognitive, and Clinical Neuroimaging Laboratory, Division of Experimental Medicine, Imperial College London, Hammersmith Hospital Campus, Du Cane Road, London W12 0NN, UK. r.leech@imperial.ac.uk
Abstract
The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) is a central part of the default mode network (DMN) and part of the structural core of the brain. Although the PCC often shows consistent deactivation when attention is focused on external events, anatomical studies show that the region is not homogeneous, and electrophysiological recordings in nonhuman primates suggest that it is directly involved in some forms of attention. We report a functional magnetic resonance imaging study of an attentionally demanding task (either a zero- or two-back working memory task). Standard subtraction analysis within the PCC shows a relative deactivation as task difficulty increases. In contrast, a dual-regression functional connectivity analysis reveals a clear dissociation between ventral and dorsal parts of the PCC. As task difficulty increases, the ventral PCC shows reduced integration within the DMN and less anticorrelation with the cognitive control network (CCN) activated by the task. The dorsal PCC shows an opposite pattern, with increased DMN integration and more anticorrelation. At rest, the dorsal PCC also shows functional connectivity with both the DMN and attentional networks. As expected, these results provide evidence that the PCC is involved in supporting internally directed thought, as the region is more highly integrated with the DMN at low task demands. In contrast, the task-dependent increases in connectivity between the dorsal PCC and the CCN are consistent with a role for this region in modulating the dynamic interaction between these two networks controlling the efficient allocation of attention.