title: Tracking ongoing cognition in individuals using brief, whole-brain functional connectivity patterns.
abstract: Functional connectivity (FC) patterns in functional MRI exhibit dynamic behavior on the scale of seconds, with rich spatiotemporal structure and limited sets of whole-brain, quasi-stable FC configurations (FC states) recurring across time and subjects. Based on previous evidence linking various aspects of cognition to group-level, minute-to-minute FC changes in localized connections, we hypothesized that whole-brain FC states may reflect the global, orchestrated dynamics of cognitive processing on the scale of seconds. To test this hypothesis, subjects were continuously scanned as they engaged in and transitioned between mental states dictated by tasks. FC states computed within windows as short as 22.5 s permitted robust tracking of cognition in single subjects with near perfect accuracy. Accuracy dropped markedly for subjects with the lowest task performance. Spatially restricting FC information decreased accuracy at short time scales, emphasizing the distributed nature of whole-brain FC dynamics, beyond univariate magnitude changes, as valuable markers of cognition.
authors.affiliation: Section on Functional Imaging Methods, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892; javier.gonzalez-castillo@nih.gov.
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gonzalez-Castillo
authors.affiliation: Section on Functional Imaging Methods, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892; Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720;
authors.forename: Colin W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Hoy
authors.affiliation: Section on Functional Imaging Methods, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892;
authors.forename: Daniel A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Handwerker
authors.affiliation: Section on Functional Imaging Methods, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892; Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA 02130;
authors.forename: Meghan E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.affiliation: Section on Functional Imaging Methods, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892;
authors.forename: Laura C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Buchanan
authors.affiliation: Statistical and Scientific Computing Core, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892;
authors.forename: Ziad S
authors.initials: ZS
authors.lastname: Saad
authors.affiliation: Section on Functional Imaging Methods, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892; Functional MRI Facility, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892.
authors.forename: Peter A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Bandettini
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging
keywords: classification; cognitive states; connectivity dynamics; fMRI; functional connectivity states