ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2015
The restless brain: how intrinsic activity organizes brain function.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 217 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
217 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Spontaneous Brain Activity Alterations in First-Episode Psychosis: A Meta-analysis of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Studies.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2023Pooled it
- Structural covariance networks in schizophrenia: A systematic review Part II.Schizophrenia research · 2022Pooled it
- Neural signatures of prosocial behaviors.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2020Pooled it
- The emerging neuroscience of social punishment: Meta-analytic evidence.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2020Pooled it
- Adolescent brain development and depression: A case for the importance of connectivity of the anterior cingulate cortex.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2016Pooled it
- Can EEG-Neurofeedback Training Enhance Effective Connectivity in People With Chronic Secondary Musculoskeletal Pain? A Secondary Analysis of a Feasibility Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial.Brain and behavior · 2025Trial
- The modulation of neural insular activity by a brain computer interface differentially affects pain discrimination.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Mind-body (hypnotherapy) treatment of women with urgency urinary incontinence: changes in brain attentional networks.American journal of obstetrics and gynecology · 2021Trial
- Trial
- Intranasal perillyl alcohol therapy improves survival of patients with recurrent glioblastoma harboring mutant variant for MTHFR rs1801133 polymorphism.BMC cancer · 2020Trial
- Little Change in Functional Brain Networks Following Acute Levodopa in Drug-Naïve Parkinson's Disease.Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society · 2020Trial
- Cortico-striatal network architecture shapes rhythmic biases in music.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Article
- Forecasting Perception Before It Happens: Context-Specific Connectivity Patterns Predict Perceptual Outcomes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- EEG-Pype: An accessible MNE-Python pipeline with graphical user interface for preprocessing and analysis of resting-state electroencephalography data.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Chronicity moderates the impact of severity on central executive-default mode network functional interactions in depression.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Associations Between Generative AI Use and Facial Expression-Derived Central Executive Network Indices: A Pilot Study.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- From microstates to macroscales: A Critical Review of Maximum Entropy Modeling and Energy Landscape Analysis in functional MRI.Research square · 2025Article
- Brain-wide resting-state fMRI network dynamics elicited by activation of single thalamic input.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Wired to Regulate: Brain Connectivity Predicts Emotion Regulation Capacity and Tendency.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
157 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
Traditionally studies of brain function have focused on task-evoked responses. By their very nature such experiments tacitly encourage a reflexive view of brain function. While such an approach has been remarkably productive at all levels of neuroscience, it ignores the alternative possibility that brain functions are mainly intrinsic and ongoing, involving information processing for interpreting, responding to and predicting environmental demands. I suggest that the latter view best captures the essence of brain function, a position that accords well with the allocation of the brain's energy resources, its limited access to sensory information and a dynamic, intrinsic functional organization. The nature of this intrinsic activity, which exhibits a surprising level of organization with dimensions of both space and time, is revealed in the ongoing activity of the brain and its metabolism. As we look to the future, understanding the nature of this intrinsic activity will require integrating knowledge from cognitive and systems neuroscience with cellular and molecular neuroscience where ion channels, receptors, components of signal transduction and metabolic pathways are all in a constant state of flux. The reward for doing so will be a much better understanding of human behaviour in health and disease.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.