The function of spontaneous brain activity is an important issue in neuroscience. Here we test the hypothesis that patterns of spontaneous activity code representational patterns evoked by stimuli. We compared in human visual cortex multi-vertex patterns of spontaneous activity to patterns evoked by ecological visual stimuli (faces, bodies, scenes) and low-level visual features (e.g. phase-scrambled faces). Specifically, we identified regions that preferred particular stimulus categories during localizer scans (e.g. extra-striate body area for bodies), measured multi-vertex patterns for each category during event-related task scans, and then correlated over vertices these stimulus-evoked patterns to the pattern measured on each frame of resting-state scans. The mean correlation coefficient was essentially zero for all regions/stimulus categories, indicating that resting multi-vertex patterns were not biased toward particular stimulus-evoked patterns. However, the spread of correlation coefficients between stimulus-evoked and resting patterns, positive and negative, was significantly greater for the preferred stimulus category of an ROI. The relationship between spontaneous and stimulus-evoked multi-vertex patterns also governed the temporal correlation or functional connectivity of patterns of spontaneous activity between individual regions (pattern-based functional connectivity). Resting multi-vertex patterns related to an object category fluctuated preferentially between ROIs preferring the same category, and fluctuations of the pattern for a category (e.g. body) within its preferred ROIs were largely uncorrelated with fluctuations of the pattern for a disparate category (e.g. scene) within its preferred ROIs. These results support the proposal that spontaneous multi-vertex activity patterns are linked to stimulus-evoked patterns, consistent with a representational function for spontaneous activity.

中文翻译：

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人类视觉皮层中自发出现的模式及其功能连接与视觉刺激诱发的模式有关。

自发大脑活动的功能是神经科学中的一个重要问题。在这里，我们测试了自发活动模式编码由刺激引起的表征模式的假设。我们将人类视觉皮层中自发活动的多顶点模式与生态视觉刺激（面部、身体、场景）和低级视觉特征（例如相位扰乱的面部）诱发的模式进行了比较。具体来说，我们确定了定位器扫描期间偏好特定刺激类别的区域（例如身体的条纹外身体区域），在与事件相关的任务扫描期间测量每个类别的多顶点模式，然后将这些刺激诱发的模式与顶点相关联在每帧静止状态扫描上测量的模式。所有区域/刺激类别的平均相关系数基本上为零，表明休息的多顶点模式不偏向于特定的刺激诱发模式。然而，对于 ROI 的首选刺激类别，刺激诱发和静息模式（正负）之间相关系数的分布明显更大。自发和刺激诱发的多顶点模式之间的关系也控制了各个区域之间自发活动模式的时间相关性或功能连接（基于模式的功能连接）。与对象类别相关的静止多顶点模式优先在偏好相同类别的 ROI 之间波动，并且类别（例如身体）在其首选 ROI 内的模式波动与不同类别（例如 场景）在其首选的 ROI 内。这些结果支持自发多顶点活动模式与刺激诱发模式相关联的提议，与自发活动的表征功能一致。