Top-Down Regulation of Default Mode Activity in Spatial Visual Attention

Dorsal anterior cingulate and bilateral anterior insula form a task control network (TCN) whose primary function includes initiating and maintaining task-level cognitive set and exerting top-down regulation of sensorimotor processing. The default mode network (DMN), comprising an anatomically distinct set of cortical areas, mediates introspection and self-referential processes. Resting-state data show that TCN and DMN interact. The functional ramifications of their interaction remain elusive. Recording fMRI data from human subjects performing a visual spatial attention task and correlating Granger causal influences with behavioral performance and blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activity we report three main findings. First, causal influences from TCN to DMN, i.e., TCN -> DMN, are positively correlated with behavioral performance. Second, causal influences from DMN to TCN, i.e., DMN -> TCN, are negatively correlated with behavioral performance. Third, stronger DMN -> TCN are associated with less elevated BOLD activity in TCN, whereas the relationship between TCN -> DMN and DMN BOLD activity is unsystematic. These results suggest that, during visual spatial attention, top-down signals from TCN to DMN regulate the activity in DMN to enhance behavioral performance, whereas signals from DMN to TCN, acting possibly as internal noise, interfere with task control, leading to degraded behavioral performance.