Dissociable large-scale brain networks are thought to subserve both task-relevant and - irrelevant cognitive operations during attention-demanding tasks. One ensemble, termed the “task-positive” network (TPN; Fox et al., 2005), consists of regions routinely showing activity increases during demanding tasks (e.g., lateral prefrontal, lateral parietal, posterior medial PFC, and insula) presumably supporting exogenous attentional orientation (Corbetta and Shulman, 2002). A second ensemble, termed the “task-negative” (or “default-mode”) network consists of regions routinely showing activity increases during passive states and reciprocal activity decreases during task performance (e.g., dorsomedial prefrontal cortex [dmPFC], vmPFC, posterior cingulate cortex [PCC] and parahippocampal regions) presumably subserving task-independent endogenous information processing (Raichle 2001; Gusnard and Raichle 2001; Buckner et al., 2008). Most efforts to elucidate the psychological functions supported by the DMN have converged on the view that it is associated with internally directed cognitive operations1 (e.g., self-reflection on past and future events, autobiographical, social or emotional functions; Amodio & Frith 2006; Buckner et al., 2008; Gusnard et al., 2001; Schacter et al., 2007). In the absence of explicit task demands (i.e., “at rest”), intrinsic activity in the
