Our CCA analysis highlighted the right anterior TPJ of the DMN as a potential key player in mediating the functional interplay between brain networks, consolidating this previously proposed role of the DMN node (13). Among 32 candidate regions in our DMN atlas, this subregion in the inferior parietal lobe turned out to be most selectively important within DMN−networks coupling in the population mode that explained the most variance in DMN−networks interplay. Coupling increases of the right anterior TPJ, and its homologous subregion on the left, were related to down-regulated coupling between the DMN and the saliency network as well as up-regulated coupling among somatomotor networks. Our study adds to previous observations that several functional network patterns of correlation and anticorrelation spatially overlap in DMN regions (39). In particular, our results suggest that the apparent antagonism between the DMN and brain systems more closely linked to perception and action (7) may be related to the role of the anterior TPJ in the right and left hemisphere (13). This pattern of functional associations is consistent with the importance of the TPJ in describing global cortical dynamics, as these states likely depend on bringing together patterns of neural information processing.
