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Title: Mapping Causal Brain Interactions in fMRI Decoded Neurofeedback
Neurofeedback (NF), including its specialized form De- coded Neurofeedback (DecNef), holds great promise for improving mental health and cognitive function by al- lowing individuals to voluntarily control their brain ac- tivity. However, there exists vast subject-to-subject and region-to-region variability in neurofeedback outcomes and the causal mechanisms involved in successful neu- rofeedback are largely unknown. In this paper, we inves- tigate the neural mechanisms behind this variability us- ing whole-brain causal connectomes derived from func- tional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data from a DecNef study aimed at reducing common fears via sub- conscious induction of feared images. During NF, we found strongest causal connections among regions of the attention and somatomotor subnetworks. Addition- ally, the net strength of causal effects between most pairs of subnetworks was significantly correlated with mean NF score, though with different signs. Specifically, we found most connections among visual, subcortical, de- fault mode, and dorsal attention subnetworks to support NF success, while most connections among ventral at- tention, somatomotor, limbic, and control subnetworks correlated negatively with NF scores.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2239654
PAR ID:
10580824
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Proceedings of the 7th Annual Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN)
Date Published:
Format(s):
Medium: X
Location:
MIT, Boston, MA
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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