Treves Isaac N, Kucyi Aaron K, Tierney Anna O, Balkind Emma, Whitfield-Gabrieli Susan, Schuman-Olivier Zev, Gabrieli John D E, Webb Christian A
McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Building 46, 43 Vassar Street, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States.
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Building 46, 43 Vassar Street, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States.
Cereb Cortex. 2025 Feb 5;35(2). doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf024.
Breathing meditation typically consists of directing attention toward breathing and redirecting attention when the mind wanders. As yet, we do not have a full understanding of the neural mechanisms of breath attention, in particular, how large-scale network interactions may be different between breath attention and rest and how these interactions may be modulated during periods of on-task and off-task attention to the breath. One promising approach may be examining fMRI measures including static connectivity between brain regions as well as dynamic, time-varying brain states. In this study, we analyzed static and dynamic functional connectivity in 72 adolescents during a breath-counting task (BCT), leveraging physiological respiration data to detect objective on-task and off-task periods. During the BCT relative to rest, we identified increases in static connectivity within attention-direction and orienting networks and anticorrelations between attention networks and the DMN. Dynamic connectivity analysis revealed four distinct brain states, including a DMN-anticorrelated brain state, proportionally more present during the BCT than the rest. We found there were distinct brain state markers of (i) breathing tasks vs rest and (ii) momentary on-task vs off-task attention within the BCT, yet in this analysis, no identifiable brain states reflecting between-individual behavioral variability.
呼吸冥想通常包括将注意力导向呼吸,并在思维 wandering 时重新引导注意力。目前,我们尚未完全了解呼吸注意力的神经机制,特别是呼吸注意力与休息状态之间大规模网络相互作用可能存在的差异,以及在对呼吸进行任务中注意力和任务外注意力期间这些相互作用可能如何被调节。一种有前景的方法可能是检查功能磁共振成像(fMRI)测量结果,包括脑区之间的静态连接以及动态、随时间变化的脑状态。在本研究中,我们在一项计数呼吸任务(BCT)期间分析了72名青少年的静态和动态功能连接,利用生理呼吸数据来检测客观的任务中及任务外时间段。在BCT期间相对于休息状态,我们发现注意力导向和定向网络内的静态连接增加,以及注意力网络与默认模式网络(DMN)之间的反相关。动态连接分析揭示了四种不同的脑状态,包括一种与DMN反相关的脑状态,在BCT期间比休息状态下出现的比例更高。我们发现存在(i)呼吸任务与休息之间以及(ii)BCT内瞬间任务中与任务外注意力之间不同的脑状态标记,但在该分析中,没有可识别的脑状态反映个体间的行为变异性。