Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Max Planck School of Cognition, Leipzig, Germany
Bronte Mckeown
Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada
Otto Hahn Group Cognitive Neurogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-7: Brain and Behaviour), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany
Otto Hahn Group Cognitive Neurogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-7: Brain and Behaviour), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany; Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
Daniel S Margulies
Frontlab, Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière, UPMC UMRS 1127, Inserm U 1127, CNRS UMR 7225, Paris, France
Adam Turnbull
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, United States; Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, United States
McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Reinder Vos de Wael
McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Arno Villringer
Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Max Planck School of Cognition, Leipzig, Germany; Day Clinic of Cognitive Neurology, Universitätsklinikum Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany; MindBrainBody Institute, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Center for Stroke Research Berlin (CSB), Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Complex macro-scale patterns of brain activity that emerge during periods of wakeful rest provide insight into the organisation of neural function, how these differentiate individuals based on their traits, and the neural basis of different types of self-generated thoughts. Although brain activity during wakeful rest is valuable for understanding important features of human cognition, its unconstrained nature makes it difficult to disentangle neural features related to personality traits from those related to the thoughts occurring at rest. Our study builds on recent perspectives from work on ongoing conscious thought that highlight the interactions between three brain networks – ventral and dorsal attention networks, as well as the default mode network. We combined measures of personality with state-of-the-art indices of ongoing thoughts at rest and brain imaging analysis and explored whether this ‘tri-partite’ view can provide a framework within which to understand the contribution of states and traits to observed patterns of neural activity at rest. To capture macro-scale relationships between different brain systems, we calculated cortical gradients to describe brain organisation in a low-dimensional space. Our analysis established that for more introverted individuals, regions of the ventral attention network were functionally more aligned to regions of the somatomotor system and the default mode network. At the same time, a pattern of detailed self-generated thought was associated with a decoupling of regions of dorsal attention from regions in the default mode network. Our study, therefore, establishes that interactions between attention systems and the default mode network are important influences on ongoing thought at rest and highlights the value of integrating contemporary perspectives on conscious experience when understanding patterns of brain activity at rest.
