Changes In Task Performance Research Articles

Learning, gustatory responsiveness and tyramine differences across nurse and forager honeybees.

Honeybees are well known for their complex division of labor. Each bee sequentially performs a series of social tasks during its life. The changes in social task performance are linked to gross differences in behavior and physiology. We tested whether honeybees performing different social tasks (nursing versus foraging) would differ in their gustatory responsiveness and associative learning behavior in addition to their daily tasks in the colony. Further, we investigated the role of the biogenic amine tyramine and its receptors in the behavior of nurse bees and foragers. Tyramine is an important insect neurotransmitter, which has long been neglected in behavioral studies as it was believed to only act as the metabolic precursor of the better-known amine octopamine. With the increasing number of characterized tyramine receptors in diverse insects, we need to understand the functions of tyramine on its own account. Our findings suggest an important role for tyramine and its two receptors in regulating honeybee gustatory responsiveness, social organization and learning behavior. Foragers, which were more responsive to gustatory stimuli than nurse bees and performed better in appetitive learning, also differed from nurse bees in their tyramine brain titers and in the mRNA expression of a tyramine receptor in the brain. Pharmacological activation of tyramine receptors increased gustatory responsiveness of nurse bees and foragers and improved appetitive learning in nurse bees. These data suggest that a large part of the behavioral differences between honeybees may be directly linked to tyramine signaling in the brain.

Additional helmet and pack loading reduce situational awareness during the establishment of marksmanship posture

The pickup of visual information is critical for controlling movement and maintaining situational awareness in dangerous situations. Altered coordination while wearing protective equipment may impact the likelihood of injury or death. This investigation examined the consequences of load magnitude and distribution on situational awareness, segmental coordination and head gaze in several protective equipment ensembles. Twelve soldiers stepped down onto force plates and were instructed to quickly and accurately identify visual information while establishing marksmanship posture in protective equipment. Time to discriminate visual information was extended when additional pack and helmet loads were added, with the small increase in helmet load having the largest effect. Greater head-leading and in-phase trunk–head coordination were found with lighter pack loads, while trunk-leading coordination increased and head gaze dynamics were more disrupted in heavier pack loads. Additional armour load in the vest had no consequences for Time to discriminate, coordination or head dynamics. This suggests that the addition of head borne load be carefully considered when integrating new technology and that up-armouring does not necessarily have negative consequences for marksmanship performance.Practitioner Summary: Understanding the trade-space between protection and reductions in task performance continue to challenge those developing personal protective equipment. These methods provide an approach that can help optimise equipment design and loading techniques by quantifying changes in task performance and the emergent coordination dynamics that underlie that performance.

Editorial: Effects of Game and Game-Like Training on Neurocognitive Plasticity.

Editorial: Effects of Game and Game-Like Training on Neurocognitive Plasticity.

The course of the neural correlates of reversal learning in obsessive–compulsive disorder and major depression: A naturalistic follow-up fMRI study

ObjectivesReversal learning (RL) is impaired in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) as well as in major depressive disorder (MDD). It is yet unknown to what extent pathophysiological mechanisms are state-dependent. MethodsNeural activation patterns during RL were measured using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) reversal learning in patients with OCD (N=18) and MDD (N=15). A naturalistic follow-up design enabled investigation of the relationship between changes in clinical state, task performance and task-related neural activation over time. ResultsDuring follow-up, disease severity decreased significantly in both groups. Whereas task speed improved trend-significantly, task accuracy was unchanged. Task-related dorsal frontal-striatal activation decreased at follow-up in MDD, but increased in OCD. In both groups, symptom improvement was associated with reward-related changes in neural activation in the putamen and the orbitofrontal cortex. ConclusionsIn both OCD and MDD, symptom reduction over time was associated with partial normalization of task-related activation patterns in brain regions. Whereas in OCD this normalization was characterized by increased recruitment of previously hypoactive frontal-striatal brain regions (i.e. dorsal frontal-striatal failure), in MDD previously hyperactive brain regions (frontal-striatal inefficiency), were recruited less after recovery. These results show that in both disorders frontal-striatal dysfunction is at least partly state-dependent.

Motor Performance is Impaired Following Vestibular Stimulation in Ageing Mice.

Balance and maintaining postural equilibrium are important during stationary and dynamic movements to prevent falls, particularly in older adults. While our sense of balance is influenced by vestibular, proprioceptive, and visual information, this study focuses primarily on the vestibular component and its age-related effects on balance. C57Bl/6J mice of ages 1, 5–6, 8–9 and 27–28 months were tested using a combination of standard (such as grip strength and rotarod) and newly-developed behavioral tests (including balance beam and walking trajectory tests with a vestibular stimulus). In the current study, we confirm a decline in fore-limb grip strength and gross motor coordination as age increases. We also show that a vestibular stimulus of low frequency (2–3 Hz) and duration can lead to age-dependent changes in balance beam performance, which was evident by increases in latency to begin walking on the beam as well as the number of times hind-feet slip (FS) from the beam. Furthermore, aged mice (27–28 months) that received continuous access to a running wheel for 4 weeks did not improve when retested. Mice of ages 1, 10, 13 and 27–28 months were also tested for changes in walking trajectory as a result of the vestibular stimulus. While no linear relationship was observed between the changes in trajectory and age, 1-month-old mice were considerably less affected than mice of ages 10, 13 and 27–28 months. Conclusion: this study confirms there are age-related declines in grip strength and gross motor coordination. We also demonstrate age-dependent changes to finer motor abilities as a result of a low frequency and duration vestibular stimulus. These changes showed that while the ability to perform the balance beam task remained intact across all ages tested, behavioral changes in task performance were observed.

A static organization in a dynamic context – A qualitative study of changes in working conditions for Swedish engine officers

During the last decades the shipping industry has undergone rapid technical developments and experienced hard economic conditions and increased striving for profitability. This has led to reduced staffing and changes in task performance, which has been reported to increase workload for the remaining seafarers. The working conditions on board have a number of distinct and in many ways unique characteristics, which makes the job demands and resources for seafarers unique in several ways. The purpose of this study was to assess how engine room staff perceives how these major technical and organizational changes in the shipping industry have affected job demands as well as resources. The study compiled individual interviews and focus groups interviews with engine crew members where they were asked to elaborate on the psychosocial work environment and the major changes in the working conditions on board. Engine crew describes a work situation where they feel a lack of resources. The content of the work has changed, staffing has been reduced, new tasks are being added but the organization of the crew and the design of the work place remains unaltered.

Ontogeny of division of labor in a facultatively eusocial sweat bee Megalopta genalis

In eusocial nests, colony task are divided among queens and workers, but how this division of labor develops is unknown for most species. We compared division of labor and aggressive behavior among queens and workers in the facultatively eusocial bee, Megalopta genalis, using nests with established queen-worker pairs and nests in which the incipient worker had recently emerged. We find that the majority of aggression is directed from queens toward workers in both incipient and established relationships. Established workers forage and perform trophallaxis as donors more frequently than queens, but both queens and workers perform trophallaxis as donors when workers are young. Queens spend significantly more time nest guarding than incipient and established workers, perhaps because older workers spend more time foraging and incipient workers spend significantly more time in cells than do queens. Our results show that the development of worker behavior involves dynamic temporal changes in task performance among queens and workers during the 10 days after worker emergence. During this establishment period, queens engage in maternal care by feeding their daughters, but are also aggressive toward them. This may be a mechanism by which queens coerce their daughters into becoming non-reproductive workers.

Task-positive Functional Connectivity of the Default Mode Network Transcends Task Domain.

The default mode network (DMN) was first recognized as a set of brain regions demonstrating consistently greater activity during rest than during a multitude of tasks. Originally, this network was believed to interfere with goal-directed behavior based on its decreased activity during many such tasks. More recently, however, the role of the DMN during goal-directed behavior was established for internally oriented tasks, in which the DMN demonstrated increased activity. However, the well-documented hub position and information-bridging potential of midline DMN regions indicate that there is more to uncover regarding its functional contributions to goal-directed tasks, which may be based on its functional interactions rather than its level of activation. An investigation of task-related changes in DMN functional connectivity during a series of both internal and external tasks would provide the requisite investigation for examining the role of the DMN during goal-directed task performance. In this study, 20 participants underwent fMRI while performing six tasks spanning diverse internal and external domains in addition to a resting-state scan. We hypothesized that the DMN would demonstrate "task-positive" (i.e., positively contributing to task performance) changes in functional connectivity relative to rest regardless of the direction of task-related changes in activity. Indeed, our results demonstrate significant increases in DMN connectivity with task-promoting regions (e.g., anterior insula, inferior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus) across all six tasks. Furthermore, canonical correlation analyses indicated that the observed task-related connectivity changes were significantly associated with individual differences in task performance. Our results indicate that the DMN may not only support a "default" mode but may play a greater role in both internal and external tasks through flexible coupling with task-relevant brain regions.

The Relationship Between Balance Confidence and Cognitive Motor Interference in Individuals With Multiple Sclerosis

ABSTRACTGait and cognitive impairments are compounded when performed simultaneously in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS), and this is termed cognitive-motor interference (CMI). The authors examined whether CMI is related to balance confidence in individuals with MS. They hypothesized that individuals with low balance confidence would exhibit greater CMI possibly indicating a behavioral modification during dual task conditions. Thirty-four individuals with MS completed Activity-specific Balance Confidence (ABC) scale and a cognitive assessment as well as single and dual task walking trials at a comfortable pace. CMI was calculated as the percent change in walking velocity and cognitive task performance from single- to dual-task conditions and termed dual-task cost (DTC). A correlation analysis was performed to determine the relationships between DTCs of gait and cognitive performance and ABC scores. The correlation analysis revealed no significant association between ABC and DTC of walking velocity (p > .05). A significant relationship between balance confidence and DTCs of cognition was observed. The observed relationships suggest individuals with MS tend to alter their cognitive performance rather than manipulating their gait when confronted with a dual task. Overall, the findings partially support a behavioral explanation of CMI in individuals with MS.

Genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease alters the five-year trajectory of semantic memory activation in cognitively intact elders

Healthy aging is associated with cognitive declines typically accompanied by increased task-related brain activity in comparison to younger counterparts. The Scaffolding Theory of Aging and Cognition (STAC) (Park and Reuter-Lorenz, 2009; Reuter-Lorenz and Park, 2014) posits that compensatory brain processes are responsible for maintaining normal cognitive performance in older adults, despite accumulation of aging-related neural damage. Cross-sectional studies indicate that cognitively intact elders at genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) demonstrate patterns of increased brain activity compared to low risk elders, suggesting that compensation represents an early response to AD-associated pathology. Whether this compensatory response persists or declines with the onset of cognitive impairment can only be addressed using a longitudinal design. The current prospective, 5-year longitudinal study examined brain activation in APOE ε4 carriers (N=24) and non-carriers (N=21). All participants, ages 65–85 and cognitively intact at study entry, underwent task-activated fMRI, structural MRI, and neuropsychological assessments at baseline, 18, and 57months. fMRI activation was measured in response to a semantic memory task requiring participants to discriminate famous from non-famous names. Results indicated that the trajectory of change in brain activation while performing this semantic memory task differed between APOE ε4 carriers and non-carriers. The APOE ε4 group exhibited greater activation than the Low Risk group at baseline, but they subsequently showed a progressive decline in activation during the follow-up periods with corresponding emergence of episodic memory loss and hippocampal atrophy. In contrast, the non-carriers demonstrated a gradual increase in activation over the 5-year period. Our results are consistent with the STAC model by demonstrating that compensation varies with the severity of underlying neural damage and can be exhausted with the onset of cognitive symptoms and increased structural brain pathology. Our fMRI results could not be attributed to changes in task performance, group differences in cerebral perfusion, or regional cortical atrophy.

Misattributing speech and jumping to conclusions: A longitudinal study in people at high risk of psychosis

Biases in cognition such as Jumping to Conclusions (JTC) and Verbal Self-Monitoring (VSM) are thought to underlie the formation of psychotic symptoms. This prospective study in people with an At Risk Mental State (ARMS) for psychosis examined how these cognitive biases changed over time, and predicted clinical and functional outcomes. Twenty-three participants were assessed at clinical presentation and a mean of 31 months later. Performance on a JTC and VSM tasks were measured at both time points. Relationships to symptom severity, level of function and the incidence of psychotic disorder were then examined. The levels of symptoms, function and VSM all improved over time, while JTC was stable. Five participants (22%) developed a psychotic disorder during the follow-up period, but the risk of transition was not related to performance on either task at baseline, or to longitudinal changes in task performance. JTC performance correlated with symptom severity at baseline and follow-up. Similarly, performance on the two tasks was not related to the level of functioning at follow-up. Thus, while the ARMS is associated with both VSM and JTC biases, neither predict the onset of psychosis or the overall functional outcome.

Long-term mild exercise training enhances hippocampus-dependent memory in rats.

Although exercise training improves hippocampus-related cognition, the optimum exercise intensity is still disputed. Based on the lactate threshold (LT, approximately 20 m/min on treadmill) of rats, we have shown that 2 weeks of training with stress-free mild exercise (ME, <LT), but not intense exercise (IE, >LT), comprising exercise stress, promotes adult hippocampal neurogenesis (Okamoto et al., PNAS, 2012), a potential substrate for memory improvement. These results led us to postulate that long-term ME, but not IE, training leads to improved hippocampal function as assessed with a Morris water maze (MWM) task. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the changes in physiological stress levels and MWM task performance in rats assigned to 6 weeks of sedentary control (CONT), ME-training or IE-training conditions. Results showed that, compared to the other conditions, only IE causes general adaptive syndrome (GAS), including adrenal hypertrophy, thymic atrophy and hypercorticosteronemia. In the MWM, ME led to enhanced memory, but not learning, compared with CONT, while IE produced no change in either capacity, probably due to GAS. These findings support the hypothesis that 6 weeks of continuous ME training leads to enhanced hippocampus-related memory, which may have implications for both healthy adults and subjects with low physical capacity.

Emotional contagion in dogs as measured by change in cognitive task performance

Domestic dogs are living with humans in a very special inter-species relationship. Previous studies have shown physiological and hormonal synchronisation between dogs and their owners during positive interaction. Dogs are also known to be able to discriminate human emotions and they were also presupposed to have the capacity to empathise with humans. Based on these results we hypothesize that the owner's emotions can be contagious to the dog and stress-related emotional changes in dogs can be tracked by memory tasks because both human and nonhuman studies indicate a significant effect of perceived stress on subjects’ cognitive performance. In the present study the owners, after having completed State Anxiety Inventory and having participated in a memory task, were manipulated with either negative (Stressed owner condition) or positive (Non-stressed owner condition) verbal feedback in an additional task. Results indicate that the owners’ self-reported anxiety significantly increased in the Stressed owner condition due to the manipulation. We also measured the effect of the different manipulations on the owners’ and also on their dogs’ memory performance and found that in line with earlier studies the stress-evoking intervention had an improving effect on the owners’ memory performance. After separation from their owner (Stressed dog condition) dogs also showed better performance in a spatial working memory task and, more interestingly, task completion was also affected by the manipulation of their owners stress level. These findings provide further support for the emotional contagion between dogs and their owners, and suggest that measuring changes in the memory performance can be used as an indicator of contagion-induced changes in dogs’ stress level.

Priming to promote fluent motor skill execution: exploring attentional demands.

The effect of priming on the speed and accuracy of skilled performance and on a probe-reaction time task designed to measure residual attentional capacity, was assessed. Twenty-four skilled soccer players completed a dribbling task under three prime conditions (fluency, skill-focus, and neutral) and a control condition. Results revealed changes in trial completion time and secondary task performance in line with successfully priming autonomous and skill-focused attention. Retention test data for task completion time and probe-reaction time indicated a linear decrease in the priming effect such that the effect was nonsignificant after 30 min. Results provide further support for the efficacy of priming and provide the first evidence of concurrent changes in attentional demands, consistent with promoting or disrupting automatic skill execution.

Estimating endogenous changes in task performance from EEG.

Brain wave activity is known to correlate with decrements in behavioral performance as individuals enter states of fatigue, boredom, or low alertness.Many BCI technologies are adversely affected by these changes in user state, limiting their application and constraining their use to relatively short temporal epochs where behavioral performance is likely to be stable. Incorporating a passive BCI that detects when the user is performing poorly at a primary task, and adapts accordingly may prove to increase overall user performance. Here, we explore the potential for extending an established method to generate continuous estimates of behavioral performance from ongoing neural activity; evaluating the extended method by applying it to the original task domain, simulated driving; and generalizing the method by applying it to a BCI-relevant perceptual discrimination task. Specifically, we used EEG log power spectra and sequential forward floating selection (SFFS) to estimate endogenous changes in behavior in both a simulated driving task and a perceptual discrimination task. For the driving task the average correlation coefficient between the actual and estimated lane deviation was 0.37 ± 0.22 (μ ± σ). For the perceptual discrimination task we generated estimates of accuracy, reaction time, and button press duration for each participant. The correlation coefficients between the actual and estimated behavior were similar for these three metrics (accuracy = 0.25 ± 0.37, reaction time = 0.33 ± 0.23, button press duration = 0.36 ± 0.30). These findings illustrate the potential for modeling time-on-task decrements in performance from concurrent measures of neural activity.

Your brain on speed: cognitive performance of a spatial working memory task is not affected by walking speed

When humans walk in everyday life, they typically perform a range of cognitive tasks while they are on the move. Past studies examining performance changes in dual cognitive-motor tasks during walking have produced a variety of results. These discrepancies may be related to the type of cognitive task chosen, differences in the walking speeds studied, or lack of controlling for walking speed. The goal of this study was to determine how young, healthy subjects performed a spatial working memory task over a range of walking speeds. We used high-density electroencephalography to determine if electrocortical activity mirrored changes in cognitive performance across speeds. Subjects stood (0.0 m/s) and walked (0.4, 0.8, 1.2, and 1.6 m/s) with and without performing a Brooks spatial working memory task. We hypothesized that performance of the spatial working memory task and the associated electrocortical activity would decrease significantly with walking speed. Across speeds, the spatial working memory task caused subjects to step more widely compared with walking without the task. This is typically a sign that humans are adapting their gait dynamics to increase gait stability. Several cortical areas exhibited power fluctuations time-locked to memory encoding during the cognitive task. In the somatosensory association cortex, alpha power increased prior to stimulus presentation and decreased during memory encoding. There were small significant reductions in theta power in the right superior parietal lobule and the posterior cingulate cortex around memory encoding. However, the subjects did not show a significant change in cognitive task performance or electrocortical activity with walking speed. These findings indicate that in young, healthy subjects walking speed does not affect performance of a spatial working memory task. These subjects can devote adequate cortical resources to spatial cognition when needed, regardless of walking speed.

Effects of testosterone on visuospatial function and verbal fluency in postmenopausal women

This study aims to investigate the effects of testosterone on cognitive performance during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in healthy estrogen-treated postmenopausal women. This was an open-label study in which postmenopausal women on nonoral estrogen therapy were treated with transdermal testosterone for 26 weeks. Women performed tests of verbal fluency (number of words) and mental rotation (reaction time and accuracy) during pretreatment and posttreatment fMRI. Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal intensity was measured during fMRI tasks. Nine women with a mean (SD) age of 55.4 (3.8) years completed the study. Twenty-six weeks of testosterone therapy was associated with significant decreases in BOLD intensity during the mental rotation task in the right superior parietal, left inferior parietal, and left precuneus regions, and during the verbal fluency task in the left inferior frontal gyrus, left lingual gyrus, and medial frontal gyrus (all P < 0.05), with no change in task performance, accuracy, or speed. Testosterone therapy is associated with reduced BOLD signal activation in key anatomical areas during fMRI verbal fluency and visuospatial tasks in healthy estrogen-treated postmenopausal women. Our interpretation is that testosterone therapy facilitates preservation of cognitive function with less neuronal recruitment.

Working memory network plasticity after anterior temporal lobe resection: a longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Working memory is a crucial cognitive function that is disrupted in temporal lobe epilepsy. It is unclear whether this impairment is a consequence of temporal lobe involvement in working memory processes or due to seizure spread to extratemporal eloquent cortex. Anterior temporal lobe resection controls seizures in 50-80% of patients with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy and the effect of surgery on working memory are poorly understood both at a behavioural and neural level. We investigated the impact of temporal lobe resection on the efficiency and functional anatomy of working memory networks. We studied 33 patients with unilateral medial temporal lobe epilepsy (16 left) before, 3 and 12 months after anterior temporal lobe resection. Fifteen healthy control subjects were also assessed in parallel. All subjects had neuropsychological testing and performed a visuospatial working memory functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm on these three separate occasions. Changes in activation and deactivation patterns were modelled individually and compared between groups. Changes in task performance were included as regressors of interest to assess the efficiency of changes in the networks. Left and right temporal lobe epilepsy patients were impaired on preoperative measures of working memory compared to controls. Working memory performance did not decline following left or right temporal lobe resection, but improved at 3 and 12 months following left and, to a lesser extent, following right anterior temporal lobe resection. After left anterior temporal lobe resection, improved performance correlated with greater deactivation of the left hippocampal remnant and the contralateral right hippocampus. There was a failure of increased deactivation of the left hippocampal remnant at 3 months after left temporal lobe resection compared to control subjects, which had normalized 12 months after surgery. Following right anterior temporal lobe resection there was a progressive increase of activation in the right superior parietal lobe at 3 and 12 months after surgery. There was greater deactivation of the right hippocampal remnant compared to controls between 3 and 12 months after right anterior temporal lobe resection that was associated with lesser improvement in task performance. Working memory improved after anterior temporal lobe resection, particularly following left-sided resections. Postoperative working memory was reliant on the functional capacity of the hippocampal remnant and, following left resections, the functional reserve of the right hippocampus. These data suggest that working memory following temporal lobe resection is dependent on the engagement of the posterior medial temporal lobes and eloquent cortex.

Understanding the attitudes, knowledge sharing behaviors and task performance of core developers: A longitudinal study

ContextPrior research has established that a few individuals generally dominate project communication and source code changes during software development. Moreover, this pattern has been found to exist irrespective of task assignments at project initiation. ObjectiveWhile this phenomenon has been noted, prior research has not sought to understand these dominant individuals. Previous work considering the effect of team structures on team performance has found that core communicators are the gatekeepers of their teams’ knowledge, and the performance of these members was correlated with their teams’ success. Building on this work, we have employed a longitudinal approach to study the way core developers’ attitudes, knowledge sharing behaviors and task performance change over the course of their project, based on the analysis of repository data. MethodWe first used social network analysis (SNA) and standard statistical analysis techniques to identify and select artifacts from ten different software development teams. These procedures were also used to select central practitioners among these teams. We then applied psycholinguistic analysis and directed content analysis (CA) techniques to interpret the content of these practitioners’ messages. Finally, we inspected these core developers’ activities as recorded in system change logs at various points in time during systems’ development. ResultsAmong our findings, we observe that core developers’ attitudes and knowledge sharing behaviors were linked to their involvement in actual software development and the demands of their wider project teams. However, core developers appeared to naturally possess high levels of insightful characteristics, which became evident very early during teamwork. ConclusionsProject performance would likely benefit from strategies aimed at surrounding core developers with other competent communicators. Core developers should also be supported by a wider team who are willing to ask questions and challenge their ideas. Finally, the availability of adequate communication channels would help with maintaining positive team climate, and this is likely to mitigate the negative effects of distance during distributed developments.

Windowed correlation: a suitable tool for providing dynamic fMRI-based functional connectivity neurofeedback on task difficulty.

The goal of neurofeedback training is to provide participants with relevant information on their ongoing brain processes in order to enable them to change these processes in a meaningful way. Under the assumption of an intrinsic brain-behavior link, neurofeedback can be a tool to guide a participant towards a desired behavioral state, such as a healthier state in the case of patients. Current research in clinical neuroscience regarding the most robust indicators of pathological brain processes in psychiatric and neurological disorders indicates that fMRI-based functional connectivity measures may be among the most important biomarkers of disease. The present study therefore investigated the general potential of providing fMRI neurofeedback based on functional correlations, computed from short-window time course data at the level of single task periods. The ability to detect subtle changes in task performance with block-wise functional connectivity measures was evaluated based on imaging data from healthy participants performing a simple motor task, which was systematically varied along two task dimensions representing two different aspects of task difficulty. The results demonstrate that fMRI-based functional connectivity measures may provide a better indicator for an increase in overall (motor) task difficulty than activation level-based measures. Windowed functional correlations thus seem to provide relevant and unique information regarding ongoing brain processes, which is not captured equally well by standard activation level-based neurofeedback measures. Functional connectivity markers, therefore, may indeed provide a valuable tool to enhance and monitor learning within an fMRI neurofeedback setup.