The majority of brain activity is considered spontaneous because it does not occur in response to an external event. Researchers do not know how this inherent activity, whose spatial pattern is called the functional connectome, influences cognition. As a result, its role in mental disorders remains elusive.
“The functional connectome measures to what degree regions in the brain are connected to each other at any given time,” said Sepideh Sadaghiani, an assistant professor of psychology. “There is an overall stable structure to functional connectivity, but there is some variability over time. We don’t know what that variability means for cognition.”
A grant from the National Institute of Mental Health—part of the National Institutes of Health — will provide $2 million over five years to fund research on the functional role of this variability. Sadaghiani is the primary investigator on the grant.
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