The brain’s cingulo-opercular action-mode network
Nico U.F. Dosenbach, Marcus E. Raichle, Evan M. Gordon
Abstract
The brain is always intrinsically active, utilizing energy at high rates, while moving between global functional modes. Awake brain modes are tied to corresponding behavioral states. During goal-directed behavior, the brain enters an action-mode of function. In the action-mode, arousal is heightened, attention is focused externally, and action plans are created, converted to movements, and continuously updated based on relevant feedback, such as pain. Here, we synthesize classical and recent human and animal evidence that the brain’s action-mode is created and maintained by an action-mode network (AMN), which we had previously identified and named the cingulo-opercular network (CON) based on its anatomy. Controlling the brain’s action-mode accounts for the large variety of functions previously associated with the cingulo-opercular AMN, such as increasing arousal, processing of instructional cues, task general initiation transients, sustained goal maintenance, action planning, sympathetic drive (e.g., connectivity to adrenal medulla) for controlling physiology and internal organs, as well as action-relevant bottom-up signals such as pain, errors and viscerosensation. In the brain’s mode space, the AMN-generated action mode is the antipole to the default-mode for self-referential, emotional, and memory processing.