Resting-state neuroimaging is a dominant paradigm for studying brain function in health and disease. It is attractive for clinical research because of its simplicity for patients, straightforward standardization, and sensitivity to brain disorders. Importantly, non-sensory experiences like mind wandering may arise from ongoing brain activity. However, little is known about the link between ongoing brain activity and cognition, as phenotypes of resting-state cognition—and tools to quantify them—have been lacking. To facilitate rapid and structured measurements of resting-state cognition we developed a 50-item self-report survey, the Amsterdam Resting-State Questionnaire (ARSQ). Based on ARSQ data from 813 participants assessed after 5 min eyes-closed rest in their home, we identified seven dimensions of resting-state cognition using factor analysis: Discontinuity of Mind, Theory of Mind, Self, Planning, Sleepiness, Comfort, and Somatic Awareness. Further, we showed that the structure of cognition was similar during resting-state fMRI and EEG, and that the test-retest correlations were remarkably high for all dimensions. To explore whether inter-individual variation of resting-state cognition is related to health status, we correlated ARSQ-derived factor scores with psychometric scales measuring depression, anxiety, and sleep quality. Mental health correlated positively with Comfort and negatively with Discontinuity of Mind. Finally, we show that sleepiness may partially explain a resting-state EEG profile previously associated with Alzheimer's disease. These findings indicate that the ARSQ readily provides information about cognitive phenotypes and that it is a promising tool for research on the neural correlates of resting-state cognition in health and disease.

Developmental dyslexia, a severe and persistent reading and spelling impairment, is characterized by difficulties in processing speech sounds (i.e., phonemes). Here, we test the hypothesis that these phonological difficulties are associated with a dysfunction of the auditory sensory thalamus, the medial geniculate body (MGB). By using functional MRI, we found that, in dyslexic adults, the MGB responded abnormally when the task required attending to phonemes compared with other speech features. No other structure in the auditory pathway showed distinct functional neural patterns between the two tasks for dyslexic and control participants. Furthermore, MGB activity correlated with dyslexia diagnostic scores, indicating that the task modulation of the MGB is critical for performance in dyslexics. These results suggest that deficits in dyslexia are associated with a failure of the neural mechanism that dynamically tunes MGB according to predictions from cortical areas to optimize speech processing. This view on task-related MGB dysfunction in dyslexics has the potential to reconcile influential theories of dyslexia within a predictive coding framework of brain function.functional MRI | speech recognition | auditory processing | magnocellular

Human beings differ in their ability to master the sounds of their second language (L2). Phonetic training studies have proposed that differences in phonetic learning stem from differences in psychoacoustic abilities rather than speech-specific capabilities. We aimed at finding the origin of individual differences in L2 phonetic acquisition in natural learning contexts. We consider two alternative explanations: a general psychoacoustic origin vs. a speech-specific one. For this purpose, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from two groups of early, proficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals who differed in their mastery of the Catalan (L2) phonetic contrast /e-/. Brain activity in response to acoustic change detection was recorded in three different conditions involving tones of different length (duration condition), frequency (frequency condition), and presentation order (pattern condition). In addition, neural correlates of speech change detection were also assessed for both native (/o/-/e/) and nonnative (/o/-/ö /) phonetic contrasts (speech condition). Participants' discrimination accuracy, reflected electrically as a mismatch negativity (MMN), was similar between the two groups of participants in the three acoustic conditions. Conversely, the MMN was reduced in poor perceivers (PP) when they were presented with speech sounds. Therefore, our results support a speech-specific origin of individual variability in L2 phonetic mastery. mismatch negativity ͉ event-related potentials ͉ bilingualism L earning a nonnative language sound system is notoriously difficult and often results in the foreign accent that characterizes nonnative speakers. This difficulty in learning a new speech sound system also has consequences for comprehension of the nonnative language. For example, most Japanese native speakers may consider that the English words /rock/ and /lock/ are the same word (1), because the Japanese speech-sound system does not distinguish between the phonemes /r/ and /l/. However, individuals differ significantly in the degree to which they master a nonnative phonetic code, and factors such as the age of acquisition, the amount of exposure, and motivational constraints have a crucial role in final phonetic attainment (2). Despite very early, extended exposure to a L2, many individuals continue to have considerable difficulties in the perception and production of some foreign sounds (3), whereas other nonnative speakers cannot be distinguished from native speakers (4). Discovering the origin of such individual differences is crucial for predicting success in L2 acquisition and for designing learning protocols that maximize the success of L2 learning. To advance in our knowledge of the origin of this individual is the goal of the present study. Specifically, we assess whether such individual differences stem from differences in domain-general psychoacoustic processes or, rather, from differences in specific speech perception abilities.One prolific line of research has explored the neural differences between ind...

The human brain frequently generates thoughts and feelings detached from environmental demands. Investigating the rich repertoire of these mind-wandering experiences is challenging, as it depends on introspection and mapping its content requires an unknown number of dimensions. We recently developed a retrospective self-report questionnaire—the Amsterdam Resting-State Questionnaire (ARSQ)—which quantifies mind wandering along seven dimensions: “Discontinuity of Mind,” “Theory of Mind,” “Self,” “Planning,” “Sleepiness,” “Comfort,” and “Somatic Awareness.” Here, we show using confirmatory factor analysis that the ARSQ can be simplified by standardizing the number of items per factor and extending it to a 10-dimensional model, adding “Health Concern,” “Visual Thought,” and “Verbal Thought.” We will refer to this extended ARSQ as the “ARSQ 2.0.” Testing for effects of age and gender revealed no main effect for gender, yet a moderate and significant negative effect for age on the dimensions of “Self,” “Planning,” and “Visual Thought.” Interestingly, we observed stable and significant test-retest correlations across measurement intervals of 3–32 months except for “Sleepiness” and “Health Concern.” To investigate whether this stability could be related to personality traits, we correlated ARSQ scores to proxy measures of Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory, revealing multiple significant associations for the trait “Self-Directedness.” Other traits correlated to specific ARSQ dimensions, e.g., a negative association between “Harm Avoidance” and “Comfort.” Together, our results suggest that the ARSQ 2.0 is a promising instrument for quantitative studies on mind wandering and its relation to other psychological or physiological phenomena.

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