TY - JOUR T1 - Effective connectivity inferred from fMRI transition dynamics during movie viewing points to a balanced reconfiguration of cortical interactions JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/110015 SP - 110015 AU - Matthieu Gilson AU - Gustavo Deco AU - Karl Friston AU - Patric Hagmann AU - Dante Mantini AU - Viviana Betti AU - Gian Luca Romani AU - Maurizio Corbetta Y1 - 2017/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/20/110015.abstract N2 - Our behavior entails a flexible and context-sensitive interplay between brain areas to integrate information according to goal-directed requirements. However, the neural mechanisms governing the entrainment of functionally specialized brain areas remain poorly understood. In particular, the question arises whether observed changes in the activity for different cognitive conditions are explained by modifications of the (intrinsic) inputs or (extrinsic) recurrent connectivity? Here, we show that fMRI transitions over successive time points – a new version of dynamic functional connectivity compared to usual definitions – convey information about the task performed by 19 subjects, namely watching a movie versus a black screen (rest). We use a theoretical framework that extracts this information to characterize the mechanisms underlying cortical coordination at the whole brain level. Our approach relies on our recent network model that was introduced for resting-state fMRI and estimates both the amplitude of input fluctuating activity to each of the 66 cortical regions and the strengths of cortico-cortical interactions between them. In our model, the change of condition does modify the (extrinsic) recurrent connectivity as much as the (intrinsic) inputs, which are putatively related to the movie stimulus. However,, detailed changes in connectivity preserve a balance in the propagation of fluctuating activity and select specific pathways that integrate sensory information from the visual and auditory systems to high-level regions of the brain.. These findings speak to a dynamic functional integration that underlies the hierarchical processing in the brain. ER -