Having established that spontaneous brain activity follows meaningful coactivation patterns and correlates with behavior, researchers have turned their attention to understanding its function and behavioral significance. We suggest closed-loop neuromodulation as a neural perturbation tool uniquely well suited for this task. Closed-loop neuromodulation has primarily been viewed as an interventionist tool to teach subjects to directly control their own brain activity. We examine an alternative operant conditioning model of closed-loop neuromodulation which, through implicit feedback, can manipulate spontaneous activity at the network level, without violating the spontaneous or endogenous nature of the signal, thereby providing a direct test of network causality.

在确定自发性大脑活动遵循有意义的共激活模式并与行为相关后，研究人员将注意力转向了解其功能和行为意义。我们建议将闭环神经调节作为一种特别适合这项任务的神经扰动工具。闭环神经调节主要被视为一种干预工具，可以教受试者直接控制自己的大脑活动。我们研究了闭环神经调节的另一种操作性条件反射模型，该模型通过隐式反馈可以在网络级别操纵自发活动，而不会违反信号的自发或内生性质，从而提供对网络因果关系的直接测试。