Editor's Summary
3 May 2007
The idling brain
Studies of brain function tend to measure activity during specific tasks or in response to specific stimuli. Yet most of the brain's time and energy is not devoted to these activities. Functional magnetic resonance imaging now shows that the monkey brain is constantly cycling through elaborate, distributed patterns of activity of a type previously associated with sensory, motor or cognitive phenomena. The fluctuations are present even during anaesthesia-induced unconsciousness, and correspond to underlying patterns of anatomical connection. These neural circuits may represent the underlying structure that makes perception and thought possible. Intriguingly, the templates are similar (but not identical) in monkeys and humans, suggesting that this structure is conserved across primate species.
News and Views: Neuroscience: Unconscious networking
What are neural networks doing when the brain is at rest? It turns out that in primates, even under conditions of deep anaesthesia, some of these networks undergo highly organized patterns of activity.
Mark A. Pinsk & Sabine Kastner
doi:10.1038/447046a
Letter: Intrinsic functional architecture in the anaesthetized monkey brain
J. L. Vincent, G. H. Patel, M. D. Fox, A. Z. Snyder, J. T. Baker, D. C. Van Essen, J. M. Zempel, L. H. Snyder, M. Corbetta & M. E. Raichle
doi:10.1038/nature05758
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