Time persistence of the fMRI resting-state functional brain networks.

Time persistence is a fundamental property of many complex physical and biological systems; thus understanding the phenomenon in the brain is of high importance. Time persistence has been explored at the level of stand-alone neural time-series, but since the brain functions as an interconnected network, it is essential to examine time persistence at the network level. Changes in resting-state networks have been previously investigated using both dynamic (i.

Elucidating the difference between mind-wandering and day-dreaming terms.

Self-generated thoughts have been widely investigated in recent years, while the terms "mind-wandering" and "day-dreaming" are usually used interchangeably. But are these terms equivalent? To test this, online study participants were presented with situations of a protagonist engaged in self-generated thoughts. The scenarios differed with regard to type of situation, the activity in which the protagonist was engaged in, and the properties of the self-generated thoughts.

Naturalistic auditory stimuli with fNIRS prefrontal cortex imaging: A potential paradigm for disorder of consciousness diagnostics (a study with healthy participants).

Disorder of consciousness (DOC) is a devastating condition due to brain damage. A patient in this condition is non-responsive, but nevertheless might be conscious at least at some level. Determining the conscious level of DOC patients is important for both medical and ethical reasons, but reliably achieving this has been a major challenge.

Neural modulations in the auditory cortex during internal and external attention tasks: A single-patient intracranial recording study.

Brain sensory processing is not passive, but is rather modulated by our internal state. Different research methods such as non-invasive imaging methods and intracranial recording of the local field potential (LFP) have been used to study to what extent sensory processing and the auditory cortex in particular are modulated by selective attention. However, at the level of the single- or multi-units the selective attention in humans has not been tested.