Brain ConnectivityJune 1, 2026Geeta Prem Chandoo Damisetti, C M Markan, Sona Ahuja et al.
Brain networks and meditation have recently gained attention, with studies suggesting that more efficiently organized meditation brain networks are linked to better cognitive performance. This efficiency is exemplified in small-world brain networks, which combine local segregation with global integration, facilitating optimal information processing. This study examines the small-world...
Background: Resting-state fMRI analyses have been used to examine functional connectivity in the aging brain. Recently, fluctuations in the fMRI BOLD signal have been used as a potential marker of integrity in neural systems. Despite its increasing popularity, the results of BOLD variability analyses and traditional seed-based functional connectivity analyses have rarely been compared. The...
Brain ConnectivityAugust 1, 2024Clara G. Zundel, Samantha L Ely, Cole Brokamp et al.
Background: Air pollution exposure has been associated with adverse cognitive and mental health outcomes in children, adolescents, and adults, although youth may be particularly susceptible given ongoing brain development. However, the neurodevelopmental mechanisms underlying the associations among air pollution, cognition, and mental health remain unclear. We examined the impact of particulate...
Brain ConnectivityApril 1, 2023Jiasheng Su, Kiran Thapaliya, Natalie Eaton-Fitch et al.
Background: Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a debilitating disease with unknown pathophysiology. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in ME/CFS have reported disparate connectivities for the brain salience (SA) network and default mode network (DMN). Materials and Methods: In this study, we acquired resting-state and task fMRI with an advanced...
Sustained attention and working memory were improved in young adults after they engaged in a recently developed, closed-loop, digital meditation practice. Whether this type of meditation also has a sustained effect on dominant resting-state networks is currently unknown. In this study, we examined the resting brain states before and after a period of breath-focused, digital meditation training...
Brain ConnectivityFebruary 1, 2021Danish M. Khan, Nidal Kamel, Mustapha Muzaimi et al.
Introduction: With the recent technical advances in brain imaging modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, and functional magnetic resonance imaging ( f MRI), researchers' interests have inclined over the years to study brain functions through the analysis of the variations in the statistical dependence among various brain regions. Through its wide use in...
The default mode network (DMN) is typically associated with off-task internal mentation, or with goal-oriented tasks that require self-referential processing such as autobiographical planning. However, recent reports suggest a broader involvement of the DMN in higher cognition. In line with this view, we report global connectivity changes that are centered on the main DMN hubs of precuneus and...
Meditation has a versatile nature to affect cognitive functioning of human brain. Recent researches demonstrated its effects on white matter (WM) properties of human brain. In this research, we aim to investigate WM microstructure of corpus callosum (CC) in long-term meditators (LTMs) of rajayoga meditation using diffusion tensor imaging. For this cross-sectional analysis, 22 LTMs and 17...
Brain ConnectivityJanuary 3, 2018Zack Y Shan, Kevin Finegan, Sandeep Bhuta et al.
The chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)/myalgic encephalomyelitis is a debilitating disease with unknown pathophysiology and no diagnostic test. This study investigated the default mode network (DMN) to understand the pathophysiology of CFS and to identify potential biomarkers. Using functional MRI (fMRI) collected from 72 subjects (45 CFS and 27 controls) with a temporal resolution of 0.798 sec, we...
Mindfulness refers to attending to moment-to-moment experiences with acceptance and no judgment. Several scales have been developed to quantify different components of mindfulness. The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) is particularly sensitive to trait mindfulness and is proposed to measure the attentional component of mindfulness. The purpose of this study was to identify the neural...
Conscious perception relies on interactions between spatially and functionally distinct modules of the brain at various spatiotemporal scales. These interactions are altered by anesthesia, an intervention that leads to fading consciousness. Relatively little is known about brain functional connectivity and its anesthetic modulation at a fine spatial scale. Here, we used functional imaging to...
Recent electrophysiological studies have suggested surges in electrical correlates of consciousness (i.e., elevated gamma power and connectivity) after cardiac arrest (CA). This study examines electrocorticogram (ECoG) activity and coherence of the dying brain during asphyxial CA. Male Wistar rats (n = 16) were induced with isoflurane anesthesia, which was washed out before asphyxial CA. Mean...
Brain ConnectivityFebruary 2017Yuncong Ma, Christina Hamilton, Nanyin Zhang
Brain functional connectivity undergoes dynamic changes from the awake to unconscious states. However, how the dynamics of functional connectivity patterns are linked to consciousness at the behavioral level remains elusive. In this study, we acquired resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data during wakefulness and graded levels of consciousness in rats. Data were analyzed using...
When the brain is not engaged in goal-directed activities and at rest, there are still measureable patterns of activity. One resting-state network, the default mode network (DMN) is responsible for a self-referential introspective state. There are many factors that influence normal changes in brain activity. The purpose of this review is to summarize differences in DMN functional connectivity...
Brain ConnectivityFebruary 1, 2016Tun Jao, Chia-Wei Li, Petra E Vértes et al.
Meditation induces a distinct and reversible mental state that provides insights into brain correlates of consciousness. We explored brain network changes related to meditation by graph theoretical analysis of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data. Eighteen Taoist meditators with varying levels of expertise were scanned using a within-subjects counterbalanced design during...
This analysis examines the neuronal foundation of drug-induced psychomimetic symptoms by relating the severity of these symptoms to changes in functional connectivity for a range of different psychoactive compounds with varying degrees of psychomimetic effects. The repeated measures design included 323 resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging time series and measures of subjective...
Brain ConnectivityFebruary 1, 2015Xingfeng Li, Elizabeth G. Kehoe, Thomas Martin McGinnity et al.
It is known that the default mode network (DMN) may be modulated by a cognitive task and by performance level. Changes in the DMN have been examined by investigating resting-state activation levels, but there have been very few studies examining the modulation of effective connectivity of the DMN during a task in healthy older subjects. In this study, the authors examined how effective...
Recent evidence on resting-state networks in functional (connectivity) magnetic resonance imaging (fcMRI) suggests that there may be significant spatial variability of activity foci over time. This study used a sliding time window approach with the spatial domain-independent component analysis (SliTICA) to detect spatial maps of resting-state networks over time. The study hypothesis was that...
Endocannabinoid receptors modulate synaptic plasticity in the brain and may therefore impact cortical connectivity not only during development but also in response to substance abuse in later life. Such alterations may not be evident in volumetric measures utilized in brain imaging, but could affect the local and global organization of brain networks. To test this hypothesis, we used a novel...