Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Blink-related momentary activation of the default mode network while viewing videos

2012; National Academy of Sciences; Volume: 110; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1073/pnas.1214804110

1091-6490

Tamami Nakano, Makoto Katô, Yusuke Morito, Seishi Itoi, Shigeru Kitazawa,

Neural dynamics and brain function

It remains unknown why we generate spontaneous eyeblinks every few seconds, more often than necessary for ocular lubrication. Because eyeblinks tend to occur at implicit breakpoints while viewing videos, we hypothesized that eyeblinks are actively involved in the release of attention. We show that while viewing videos, cortical activity momentarily decreases in the dorsal attention network after blink onset but increases in the default-mode network implicated in internal processing. In contrast, physical blackouts of the video do not elicit such reciprocal changes in brain networks. The results suggest that eyeblinks are actively involved in the process of attentional disengagement during a cognitive behavior by momentarily activating the default-mode network while deactivating the dorsal attention network.