Natural Scenes Viewing Alters the Dynamics of Functional Connectivity in the Human Brain

• The topography of fMRI and MEG RSN is similar during rest and movie observation
• The α band BLP network correlation is broadly suppressed during movie observation
• Focal task-dependent temporal correlations emerge during movie observation
• Sensory stimuli contribute to nonstationary properties of BLP correlation

SummarySpontaneous fMRI fluctuations are organized in large-scale spatiotemporal structures, or resting-state networks (RSN). However, it is unknown how task performance affects RSN dynamics. We use MEG to measure slow (∼0.1 Hz) coherent fluctuations of band-limited power (BLP), a robust correlate of RSN, during rest and movie observation and compare them to fMRI-RSN. BLP correlation, especially in α band, dropped in multiple RSN during movie although overall topography was maintained. Variability of power correlation increased in visual occipital cortex, and transient decrements corresponded to scenes perceived as “event boundaries.” Additionally, stronger task-dependent interactions developed between vision and language networks in θ and β bands, and default and language networks in γ band. The topography of fMRI connectivity and relative changes induced by the movie were well matched to MEG. We conclude that resting-state and task network interactions are clearly different in the frequency domain despite maintenance of underlying network topography.