The structured mind at rest: Evidence for the “Common Model of Cognition” in resting state fMRI

The Common Model of Cognition (CMC) has been proposed as a high level framework through which functional neuroimaging data can be predicted and interpreted. Previous work has found the CMC is capable of predicting brain activity across a variety of tasks, but it has not been tested on resting state data. This paper adapts a previously used method for comparing theoretical models of brain structure, Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM), for the task-free environment of resting state, and compares the CMC against six alternate architectural frameworks. For a large sample of subjects from the Human Connectome Project (HCP), the CMC provides the best account of resting state brain activity, suggesting the presence of a general purpose structure of connections in the brain that drives activity when at rest and when performing directed task behavior.