Understanding complex systems such as the human brain requires characterization of the system's architecture across multiple levels of organization-from neurons, to local circuits, to brain regions, and ultimately large-scale brain networks. Here we focus on characterizing the human brain's large-scale network organization, as it provides an overall framework for the organization of all other levels. We developed a highly principled approach to identify cortical network communities at the level of functional systems, calibrating our community detection algorithm using extremely well-established sensory and motor systems as guides. Building on previous network partitions, we replicated and expanded upon well-known and recently-identified networks, including several higher-order cognitive networks such as a left-lateralized language network. We expanded these cortical networks to subcortex, revealing 358 highly-organized subcortical parcels that take part in forming whole-brain functional networks. Notably, the identified subcortical parcels are similar in number to a recent estimate of the number of cortical parcels (360). This whole-brain network atlas-released as an open resource for the neuroscience community-places all brain structure s across both cortex and subcortex into a single large-scale functional framework, with the potential to facilitate a variety of studies investigating large-scale functional networks in health and disease.

How humans understand the intention of others' actions remains controversial. Some authors have suggested that intentions are recognized by means of a motor simulation of the observed action with the mirror-neuron system [1-3]. Others emphasize that intention recognition is an inferential process, often called "mentalizing" or employing a "theory of mind," which activates areas well outside the motor system [4-6]. Here, we assessed the contribution of brain regions involved in motor simulation and mentalizing for understanding action intentions via functional brain imaging. Results show that the inferior frontal gyrus (part of the mirror-neuron system) processes the intentionality of an observed action on the basis of the visual properties of the action, irrespective of whether the subject paid attention to the intention or not. Conversely, brain areas that are part of a "mentalizing" network become active when subjects reflect about the intentionality of an observed action, but they are largely insensitive to the visual properties of the observed action. This supports the hypothesis that motor simulation and mentalizing have distinct but complementary functions for the recognition of others' intentions.

Understanding complex systems such as the human brain requires characterization of the system's architecture across multiple levels of organization-from neurons, to local circuits, to brain regions, and ultimately large-scale brain networks. Here we focus on characterizing the human brain's comprehensive large-scale network organization, as it provides an overall framework for the organization of all other levels. We leveraged the Human Connectome Project dataset to identify network communities across cortical regions, replicating well-known networks and revealing several novel but robust networks, including a left-lateralized language network. We expanded these cortical networks to subcortex, revealing 288 highly-organized subcortical segments that take part in forming whole-brain functional networks. This whole-brain network atlas-released as an open resource for the neuroscience community-places all brain structures across both cortex and subcortex in a single large-scale functional framework, substantially advancing existing atlases to provide a brain-wide functional network characterization in humans.

The present study shows that specific attention problems can already be detected in the behavior and brain activity of 5- to 7-year-old children with symptoms of ADHD performing a CPT-AX task, and might be better indicators for the risk of developing ADHD than impulsivity measures.

Impulsivity is an important symptom of many psychiatric disorders, and can be divided into two subtypes: response inhibition deficits and delay aversion. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between delay aversion and response inhibition, both to each other and to locomotion, extinction of conditioned responses, sexual behaviour, and aggressive behaviour. To that end, we quantified the behaviour of 24 rats in several tests. To measure response inhibition, rats were trained in a stop-signal task. In this operant task, rats were rewarded food if they inhibited execution of a response after presentation of an audible stop-signal. Delay aversion was measured in an operant task in which rats made a choice between a small, immediately available reward and a large reward available after a delay. The results showed that delay aversion and response inhibition were independent. Responses during extinction and various measures of aggressive behaviour were positively correlated to delay aversion. The speed of go-trials in the stop-task was correlated to non-aggressive behaviour. We conclude that the role of response inhibition in various behaviours is small, but delay aversion in particular contributes to several other behaviours, such as aggressive behaviour and extinction.