Association between resting-state synaptic activity and overall performance in a cognitive visuoconstructive task as revealed by magnetoencephalography

Performance of a task involves the engagement of various brain areas, as evidenced by the effects of lesions of particular brain areas and the results of functional neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies. Here, we tested the hypothesis that overall task performance would depend on the level of ongoing, resting-state change in synaptic activity of participating areas, such that the degree of success of the outcome would be higher, the higher the resting-state activation. For that purpose, we used 248-sensor magnetoencephalography (MEG) in healthy people to obtain estimates of resting-state synaptic activity in various areas and then correlated those estimates to the average performance score in three visuospatial tasks assessed outside the MEG session using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), namely, the trails, cube, and clock drawing (TCCD) tasks. We found that the average success score in these tasks covaried positively with the level of resting-state neural activity of three broad area clusters, namely, 1) right cerebellum, occipital, and parietal cortical regions (strongest association), 2) right inferior frontal, middle and posterior temporal regions, and 3) left middle frontal region. The dependence of the outcome of task performance on the activation state of areas in the absence of action, i.e., in resting-state, points to a priming role in facilitating task performance. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Does successful task performance depend on the resting-state, background activity of brain areas involved? We used magnetoencephalography to obtain estimates of this activity that we then correlated with the average score of performing three visuospatial tasks outside the magnetoencephalography session. Task performance correlated positively with resting-state activity mostly in right-sided brain regions, broadly agreeing with existing knowledge from neuropsychological and other studies. These results point to a priming effect of background neural activity on task performance.