Sepideh Sadaghiani

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Complex brain function comprises a multitude of neural operations in parallel and often at different speeds. Each of these operations is carried out across a network of distributed brain regions. How multiple distributed processes are facilitated in parallel is largely unknown. We postulate that such processing relies on a multiplex of dynamic netw...

Several simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG)-functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have aimed to identify the relationship between EEG band power and fMRI resting-state networks (RSNs) to elucidate their neurobiological significance. Although common patterns have emerged, inconsistent results have also been reported. This study...

Complex brain function comprises a multitude of neural operations in parallel and often at different speeds. Each of these operations is carried out across a network of distributed brain regions. How multiple distributed processes are facilitated in parallel is largely unknown. We postulate that such processing relies on a multiplex of dynamic netw...

The brain can be decomposed into large-scale functional networks, but the specific spatial topographies of these networks and the names used to describe them vary across studies. Such discordance has hampered interpretation and convergence of research findings across the field. We have developed the Network Correspondence Toolbox (NCT) to permit re...

Systemic viral infections with neurotropic potential pose significant global health challenges. The Zika virus (ZIKV) is known for its pronounced neurotropism, with recent infectious clusters raising renewed public health concerns. While research has predominantly focused on congenital populations, growing evidence suggests that the mature central...

The functional relevance of time-averaged (static) functional connectome patterns is well recognized. However, the real-time relationship between ongoing connectome dynamics and behavioral outcomes is not well understood. It is particularly unclear whether behavior is linked to connectivity dynamics mainly among a common set of connections regardle...

Dynamic reconfigurations of the functional connectome across different connectivity states are highly heritable, predictive of cognitive abilities, and linked to mental health. Despite their established heritability, the specific polymorphisms that shape connectome dynamics are largely unknown. Given the widespread regulatory impact of modulatory n...

Complex brain function comprises a multitude of neural operations in parallel and often at different speeds. Each of these operations is carried out across a network of distributed brain regions. How multiple distributed processes are facilitated in parallel is largely unknown. We postulate that such processing relies on a multiplex of dynamic netw...

Time-varying changes in whole-brain connectivity patterns, or connectome state dynamics, are a prominent feature of brain activity with broad functional implications. While infraslow (<0.1 Hz) connectome dynamics have been extensively studied with fMRI, rapid dynamics highly relevant for cognition are poorly understood. Here, we asked whether rapid...

Time-varying changes in whole-brain connectivity patterns, or connectome state dynamics, hold significant implications for cognition. However, connectome dynamics at fast (>1 Hz) timescales highly relevant to cognition are poorly understood due to the dominance of inherently slow fMRI in connectome studies. Here, we investigated the behavioral sign...

Complex brain function comprises a multitude of neural operations in parallel and often at different speeds. Each of these operations is carried out across a network of distributed brain regions. How multiple distributed processes are facilitated in parallel is largely unknown. We postulate that such processing relies on a multiplex of dynamic netw...

Complex brain function comprises a multitude of neural operations in parallel and often at different speeds. Each of these operations is carried out across a network of distributed brain regions. How multiple distributed processes are facilitated in parallel is largely unknown. We postulate that such processing relies on a multiplex of dynamic netw...

Decades of neuroscience research has shown that macroscale brain dynamics can be reliably decomposed into a subset of large-scale functional networks, but the specific spatial topographies of these networks and the names used to describe them can vary across studies. Such discordance has hampered interpretation and convergence of research findings...

Several simultaneous EEG-fMRI studies have aimed to identify the relationship between EEG band power and fMRI resting state networks (RSNs) to elucidate their neurobiological significance. Although common patterns have emerged, inconsistent results have also been reported. This study examines the consistency of these correlations across subjects an...

It is increasingly recognized that cognitive control requires integration across large-scale brain networks anchored in frontal and parietal cortices. While the functional role of individual networks has been studied extensively, their cross-network interactions in the service of cognitive control are poorly understood. Beyond in-the-moment regulat...

Mind wandering is a common occurrence that can have serious consequences, but estimating when mind wandering occurs is a challenging research question. Previous research has shown that during meditation, people may spontaneously alternate between task-oriented and mind-wandering states without awareness (Zukosky & Wang, 2021, Cognition, 212, Articl...

Time-varying changes in whole-brain connectivity patters, or connectome state dynamics, hold significant implications for cognition. However, connectome dynamics at fast (> 1Hz) timescales highly relevant to cognition are poorly understood due to the dominance of inherently slow fMRI in connectome studies. Here, we investigated the behavioral signi...

Time-varying changes in whole-brain connectivity patterns, or connectome state dynamics, are a prominent feature of brain activity with broad functional implications. While infraslow (<0.1Hz) connectome dynamics have been extensively studied with fMRI, rapid dynamics highly relevant for cognition are poorly understood. Here, we asked whether rapid...

Progress in scientific disciplines is accompanied by standardization of terminology. Network neuroscience, at the level of macroscale organization of the brain, is beginning to confront the challenges associated with developing a taxonomy of its fundamental explanatory constructs. The Workgroup for HArmonized Taxonomy of NETworks (WHATNET) was form...

In this editorial we introduce a new non-profit open access journal, Imaging Neuroscience. In April 2023, editors of the journals NeuroImage and NeuroImage:Reports resigned, and a month later launched Imaging Neuroscience. NeuroImage had long been the leading journal in the field of neuroimaging. While the move to fully open access in 2020 represen...

An intrinsic functional brain network is a set of discrete, spatial elements that exhibit statistically dependent activity (“functional connectivity”) with each other in a largely state-invariant manner (e.g. across wakeful rest, task performance, and sleep). Large-scale intrinsic networks—involving coupling between distant brain regions—were initi...

Pessoa's precis The Entangled Brain is a call to action. The larger concepts resonate with existing complex systems frameworks in general and in neuroscience in particular, especially in the fields of connectomics and criticality [Cocchi, L., Gollo, L. L., Zalesky, A., & Breakspear, M. Criticality in the brain: A synthesis of neurobiology, models a...

The large-scale organization of functional connectivity (FC) – the functional connectome – traverses distinct spatial patterns in a dynamic trajectory as demonstrated independently in fMRI and electrophysiological studies. These patterns are thought to satisfy ever-changing processing demands. FMRI and electrophysiology capture partly non-overlappi...

Climate change threatens the future of humanity. It will also significantly impede our ability toconduct science, by destabilising societies globally. Aviation, including travel to scientificconferences, generates a huge carbon footprint. This must be addressed if we are to limit globalwarming to the 1.5C mandated by the UN Intergovernmental Panel...

The brain's functional connectome is dynamic, constantly reconfiguring in an individual-specific manner. However, which characteristics of such reconfigurations are subject to genetic effects, and to what extent, is largely unknown. Here, we identified heritable dynamic features, quantified their heritability, and determined their association with...

Progress in scientific disciplines is accompanied by standardization of terminology. Network neuroscience, at the level of macro-scale organization of the brain, is beginning to confront the challenges associated with developing a taxonomy of its fundamental explanatory constructs. The Workgroup for HArmonized Taxonomy of NETworks (WHATNET) was for...

An intrinsic functional brain network is a set of discrete, spatial elements that exhibit statistically dependent activity (“functional connectivity”) with each other in a largely state-invariant manner (e.g. across wakeful rest, task performance, and sleep). Large-scale intrinsic networks—involving coupling between distant brain regions—were initi...

We present both a scientific overview and conceptual positions concerning the challenges and assets of electrophysiological measurements in the search for the nature and functions of the human connectome. We discuss how the field has been inspired by findings and approaches from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and informed by a small n...

Purpose Simultaneously recorded electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging (EEG-fMRI) is highly informative yet technically challenging. Until recently, there has been little information about EEG data quality and safety when used with newer multi-band (MB) fMRI sequences. Here, we measure the relative heating of a MB protocol...

The brain's functional connectome is dynamic, constantly reconfiguring in an individual-specific manner. However, which characteristics of such reconfigurations are subject to genetic effects, and to what extent, is largely unknown. Here, we identified heritable dynamic features, quantified their heritability, and determined their association with...

We present both a scientific overview and conceptual positions concerning the challenges and assets of electrophysiological measurements in the search for the nature and functions of the human connectome. We discuss how the field has been inspired by findings and approaches from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and informed by a small n...

Structural and functional brain connectomics are considered a basis for an individual's behavior and cognition. Therefore, deviations from typical connectivity patterns may indicate disease processes, and can potentially serve as disease biomarkers. To date, the direct clinical application of brain connectivity measures for diagnostics or treatment...

Both electroencephalography (EEG) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) are non-invasive methods that show complementary aspects of human brain activity. Despite measuring different proxies of brain activity, both the measured blood-oxygenation (fMRI) and neurophysiological recordings (EEG) are indirectly coupled. The electrophysiologica...

Structural and functional brain connectomics are considered a basis for an individual's behavior and cognition. Therefore deviations from typical connectivity patterns may indicate disease processes, and can potentially serve as disease biomarkers. To date, the direct clinical application of brain connectivity measures for diagnostics or treatment...

Functional connectivity of neural oscillations (oscillation-based FC) is thought to afford dynamic information exchange across task-relevant neural ensembles. Although oscillation-based FC is classically defined relative to a pre-stimulus baseline, giving rise to rapid, context-dependent changes in individual connections, studies of distributed spa...

The amygdala is one of the most widely connected structures in the primate brain and plays a key role in social and emotional behavior. Here, we present the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) of whole-brain resting-state amygdala networks to discern whether connectivity in these networks could serve as an endophenotype for social behavior....

Purpose Simultaneously recorded electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging (EEG-fMRI) is highly informative yet technically challenging. Until recently, there has been little information about the data quality and safety when used with newer multi-band (MB) fMRI sequences. Here, we assessed heating-related safety of a MB proto...

Functional connectivity (FC) of neural oscillations (~1-150Hz) is thought to facilitate neural information exchange across brain areas by forming malleable neural ensembles in the service of cognitive processes. However, neural oscillations and their FC are not restricted to certain cognitive demands and continuously unfold in all cognitive states....

Concurrent electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) bridge brain connectivity across timescales. During concurrent EEG-fMRI resting-state recordings, whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) strength is spatially correlated across modalities. However, cross-modal investigations have commonly remained correlation...

Both electroencephalography (EEG) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) are non-invasive methods that show complementary aspects of human brain activity. Despite their differences in probing brain activity, both electrophysiology and BOLD signal can map the underlying functional connectivity structure at the whole brain scale at differen...

Functional connectivity (FC), thought to provide a window into neural communication, has become a core focus in the study of brain function and cognition. However, there is no consensus on how to conceptualize large-scale FC in electrophysiology. Phase coupling (PhC), defined as coupling between the phases of two signals, reflects the synchronizati...

Long-range connectivity has become the most studied feature of human functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), yet the spatial and temporal relationship between its whole-brain dynamics and electrophysiological connectivity remains largely unknown. FMRI-derived functional connectivity exhibits spatial reconfigurations or time-varying dynamics a...

The discovery of a stable, whole-brain functional connectivity organization that is largely independent of external events has drastically extended our view of human brain function. However, this discovery has been primarily based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The role of this whole-brain organization in fast oscillation-based co...

Concurrent electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) bridge brain connectivity across timescales. During concurrent EEG-fMRI resting-state recordings, whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) strength is spatially correlated across modalities. However, cross-modal investigations have commonly remained correlation...

Long-range phase synchrony in the α-oscillation band (near 10 Hz) has been proposed to facilitate information integration across anatomically segregated regions. Which areas may top-down regulate such cross-regional integration is largely unknown. We previously found that the moment-to-moment strength of high-α band (10-12 Hz) phase synchrony co-va...

Large-scale functional connectivity of the human brain, commonly observed using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), exhibits a whole-brain spatial organization termed the functional connectome. The fMRI-derived connectome shows dynamic reconfigurations that are behaviorally relevant. Due to the indirect nature of fMRI, it is unclear wheth...

In cognitive neuroscience, focus is commonly placed on associating brain function with changes in objectively measured external stimuli or with actively generated cognitive processes. In everyday life, however, many forms of cognitive processes are initiated spontaneously, without an individual’s active effort and without explicit manipulation of b...

Objective To determine the impact of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection on brain structure and functional organization of severely affected adult patients with neurological complications that extend beyond Guillain–Barré Syndrome (GBS)‐like manifestations and include symptoms of the central nervous system (CNS). Methods In this first case–control neuroim...

The nicotinic system plays an important role in cognitive control and is implicated in several neuropsychiatric conditions. However, the contributions of genetic variability in this system to individuals’ cognitive control abilities are poorly understood and the brain processes that mediate such genetic contributions remain largely unidentified. In...

The most salient electrical signal measured from the human brain is the α-rhythm, neural activity oscillating at ∼100ms intervals. Recent findings challenge the longstanding dogma of α-band oscillations as the signature of a passively idling brain state but diverge in terms of interpretation. Despite firm correlations with behavior, the mechanistic...

Significance Most brain activity is not directly evoked by specific external events. This ongoing activity is correlated across distant brain regions within large-scale networks. This correlation or functional connectivity may reflect communication across brain regions. Strength and spatial organization of functional connectivity changes dynamicall...

The complex processing architecture underlying attentional control requires delineation of the functional role of different control-related brain networks. A key component is the cingulo-opercular (CO) network composed of anterior insula/operculum, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and thalamus. Its function has been particularly difficult to chara...

The nicotinic system plays an important role in ordinary cognition, particularly in attention. The main nicotinic receptor in the human brain is the heteromeric α4β2 neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), which is distributed throughout the brain, with an especially high density in the thalamus and brainstem. Despite the important role...

Neural oscillations in the alpha band (8-12 Hz) are increasingly viewed as an active inhibitory mechanism that gates and controls sensory information processing as a function of cognitive relevance. Extending this view, phase synchronization of alpha oscillations across distant cortical regions could regulate integration of information. Here, we in...

Scaling temporal dynamics in functional MRI (fMRI) signals have been evidenced for a decade as intrinsic characteristics of ongoing brain activity (Zarahn et al., 1997). Recently, scaling properties were shown to fluctuate across brain networks and to be modulated between rest and task (He, 2011): notably, Hurst exponent, quantifying long memory, d...

The brain should integrate sensory inputs only when they emanate from a common source and segregate those from different sources. Sensory correspondences are important cues informing the brain whether two sensory inputs are generated by a common event and should hence be integrated. Most prominently, sensory inputs should co-occur in time and space...

Recent studies have established a relation between ongoing brain activity fluctuations and intertrial variability in evoked neural responses, perception, and motor performance. Here, we extended these investigations into the domain of cognitive control. Using functional neuroimaging and a sparse event-related design (with long and unpredictable int...

Trial-by-trial variability in perceptual performance on identical stimuli has been related to spontaneous fluctuations in ongoing activity of intrinsic functional connectivity networks (ICNs). In a paradigm requiring sustained vigilance for instance, we previously observed that higher prestimulus activity in a cingulo-insular-thalamic network facil...

Ongoing brain activity has been observed since the earliest neurophysiological recordings and is found over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. It is characterized by remarkably large spontaneous modulations. Here, we review evidence for the functional role of these ongoing activity fluctuations and argue that they constitute an essential...

Spatial Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is an increasingly used data-driven method to analyze functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data. To date, it has been used to extract sets of mutually correlated brain regions without prior information on the time course of these regions. Some of these sets of regions, interpreted as functional n...

Perceptual decisions can be made when sensory input affords an inference about what generated that input. Here, we report findings from two independent perceptual experiments conducted during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a sparse event-related design. The first experiment, in the visual modality, involved forced-choice discrimi...

Spatial Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is an increasingly used data-driven method to analyze functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data. To date, it has been used to extract sets of mutually correlated brain regions without prior information on the time course of these regions. Some of these sets of regions, interpreted as functional n...

Spatial Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is an increasingly used data-driven method to analyze functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data. To date, it has been used to extract meaningful patterns without prior information. However, ICA is not robust to mild data variation and remains a parameter-sensitive algorithm. The validity of the e...

Despite intense research on the blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal underlying functional magnetic resonance imaging, our understanding of its physiological basis is far from complete. In this study, it was investigated whether the so-called poststimulus BOLD signal undershoot is solely a passive vascular effect or actively induced by n...

Recent studies have shown that ongoing activity fluctuations influence trial-by-trial perception of identical stimuli. Some brain systems seem to bias toward better perceptual performance and others toward worse. We tested whether these observations generalize to another as of yet unassessed sensory modality, audition, and a nonspatial but memory-d...

To interact with our dynamic environment, the brain merges motion information from auditory and visual senses. However, not only "natural" auditory MOTION, but also "metaphoric" de/ascending PITCH and SPEECH (e.g., "left/right"), influence the visual motion percept. Here, we systematically investigate whether these three classes of direction signal...