It has recently been shown that acute stress affects the allocation of neural resources between large-scale brain networks, and the balance between the executive control network and the salience network in particular. Maladaptation of this dynamic resource reallocation process is thought to play a major role in stress-related psychopathology, suggesting that stress resilience may be determined by the retained ability to adaptively reallocate neural resources between these two networks. Actively training this ability could hence be a potentially promising way to increase resilience in individuals at risk for developing stress-related symptomatology. Using real-time functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, the current study investigated whether individuals can learn to self-regulate stress-related large-scale network balance. Participants were engaged in a bidirectional and implicit real-time fMRI neurofeedback paradigm in which they were intermittently provided with a visual representation of the difference signal between the average activation of the salience and executive control networks, and tasked with attempting to self-regulate this signal. Our results show that, given feedback about their performance over three training sessions, participants were able to (1) learn strategies to differentially control the balance between SN and ECN activation on demand, as well as (2) successfully transfer this newly learned skill to a situation where they (a) did not receive any feedback anymore, and (b) were exposed to an acute stressor in form of the prospect of a mild electric stimulation. The current study hence constitutes an important first successful demonstration of neurofeedback training based on stress-related large-scale network balance – a novel approach that has the potential to train control over the central response to stressors in real-life and could build the foundation for future clinical interventions that aim at increasing resilience.

最近的研究表明，急性压力会影响大规模大脑网络之间的神经资源分配，尤其是执行控制网络和显着网络之间的平衡。这种动态资源重新分配过程的适应不良被认为在与压力相关的精神病理学中起主要作用，这表明压力弹性可能由在这两个网络之间自适应重新分配神经资源的保留能力决定。因此，积极训练这种能力可能是一种潜在的有前途的方法，可以提高有发展压力相关症状风险的个体的复原力。使用实时功能性磁共振成像，当前的研究调查了个人是否可以学会自我调节与压力相关的大规模网络平衡。参与者参与双向和隐式实时 fMRI 神经反馈范例，其中间歇性地向他们提供显着性和执行控制网络的平均激活之间差异信号的视觉表示，并尝试自我调节该信号. 我们的研究结果表明，根据对他们在三个培训课程中的表现的反馈，参与者能够（1）学习策略以差异控制按需激活 SN 和 ECN 之间的平衡，以及（2）成功地将这种新学到的技能转移到他们 (a) 不再收到任何反馈，并且 (b) 暴露于急性压力源，可能会受到轻微的电刺激。