Published on PLoS ONE IDIBELL researchers have shown that several brain regions known as the Default Mode Network have activity at rest and when we induce a task, this network is disabled.
The study, conducted in healthy people, also shows that if the task requires more cognitive effort, extends off to other areas beyond this network. The results of this study have been published in the journal PLoS ONE.

Since the invention of the electroencephalogram in the early twentieth century is known that even when we do nothing, our brain is active. With the advent of new imaging techniques like PET or Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, researchers have been able to define which areas of the brain are active while we are not. The Default Mode Network (DMN) is a well-defined network that relates the thoughts of self-perception and social self-reference.

The research group on Psychiatry of the IDIBELL, led by Josep Manuel Menchón, conducted a study involving 50 healthy adults to whom it has conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging at rest, while performing an emotional task and while performing a complex cognitive task.

The results of the study show that DMN areas are active when the individual is at rest and turned off when they are induced to perform a task. It is necessary to deactivate the network to activate another region, responsible for this task.

Emotional or cognitive tasks

This task can be emotional as pairing of faces expressing emotions, such as cognitive, for example respond correctly and quickly to a stroop test (write the name of a colour such as “green” in red, the individual must respond in which colour is written the word:”red”. It is a test that requires attention and effort).

The study shows that in this second situation, a complex cognitive task, deactivation extends to a region that does not belong to the DMN, the posterior insula, which has to do with the processing of somatic inputs (“the ability to feel ourselves corporally or viscerally”) that normally we process steadily when we are at rest.

IDIBELL researcher and study co-author, Narcís Cardoner says that interest in the research of this network is “to better understand how our brain and also in a next step, to study if the impaired functioning of this network is related to pathologies such as schizophrenia, depression, OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) or Alzheimer’s. ” “In diseases classified as functional, ie who have no injury is likely that patients have alterations in this network, as difficulties to disable it

when they are idle: Learning to regulate or modulate this activity could be a way to improve some pathologies but” Narcís Cardoner warns “we are still at beginning of the road. ”

This study was conducted in collaboration with the Melbourne Neuropsychiatric Center (Well Harrison) and the group of Neuroimaging at CRC-Mar (Jesús Pujol)

Article’s reference

Harrison B.J., Pujol J., Contreras-Rodríguez O., Soriano-Mas C.*, López-Solà M.*, Deus J., Ortiz H., Blanco-Hinojo L., Alonso P.*, Hernández-Ribas R.*, Cardoner N.^* and Menchón J.M.*. Task-Induced Deactivation from Rest Extends beyond the Default Mode Brain Network. PLoS ONE 6(7): e22964. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022964

*IDIBELL researchers