How Spontaneous Exploration of the Dynamic Repertoire at Rest Shapes Behavioural Performance

Poster Session A - Saturday, April 13, 2024, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

John Eusebio¹ (john.eusebio@mail.utoronto.ca), Norman Farb¹; ¹University of Toronto

There has been a growing interest in the relationship between resting state networks and behaviour. However, most of this research focused on static resting state networks. This study expands on prior research by examining how exploration of the brain's “dynamic repertoire” (i.e., the set of possible resting state network configurations) shapes human behaviour and cognition. Previous researchers proposed that exploring the dynamic repertoire lets the brain rehearse functional configurations (i.e., brain states) and optimize neural networks in anticipation of future stimulation. We tested this hypothesis using a sliding time window approach. We grouped functional connectivity matrices across this sliding window with K-means clustering to identify distinct brain states participants spontaneously entered while at rest. These resting state data were then compared to functional connectivity and performance on Go-Nogo and 2-Back tasks. We predicted a positive correlation between task performance and the frequency of certain brain states during rest and that the brain state most correlated with task performance would most resemble functional connectivity exhibited during task performance. Results were partially consistent with the hypothesis. As expected, the resting brain state most associated with Go-Nogo task performance most resembled the task-based Go-Nogo FC matrix. However, this was not the case for the 2-Back task. These findings lend plausibility to the exploration hypothesis, though it may not apply equally to all cognitive domains. Some neural circuits may benefit more from this spontaneous rehearsal than others. Future studies may expand these findings using a wider variety of neurocognitive tasks.

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