Figure 1.

Task design and brain activity differences between CBP patients and normal controls. a, Illustration of the changing vertical height of the target (gray trace) and an example of its height tracking with the modified joystick (black trace; shifted 10 units for ease of visualization) in a subject performing the visual attention tracking task. The active/rest time plot shown below represents the vector (after convolving with the hemodynamic response function) used to identify brain regions where the BOLD signal was activated or deactivated during the task. Periods of active tracking were modeled either as +1 or −1 to identify task-activated or task-deactivated regions respectively, relative to periods of rest, which were modeled as 0. Right inset, Group-averaged correlation coefficients ± SD between the target course and its tracking demonstrate that the two groups performed the task similarly. b, Group-averaged activations (red–yellow) and deactivations (blue–green) in CBP and healthy controls (random effects z > 2.3, cluster p < 0.01; overlaid on standard space). Activations were comparable between the two groups, whereas deactivations were more extensive in the controls. The last column shows the contrast (t test; p < 0.01) between controls and CBP patients. CBP patients exhibit less deactivation than normal subjects mainly in mPFC, amygdala, and PCC, all of which are considered part of the DMN.