Cognitive Dynamics Estimation: A whole-brain spatial regression paradigm for extracting the temporal dynamics of cognitive processes

Functional MRI (fMRI) has been instrumental in understanding how cognitive processes are spatially mapped in the brain, yielding insights about brain regions and functions. However, in case the orthogonality of behavioral or stimulus timing is not guaranteed, the estimated brain maps fail to dissociate each cognitive process, and the resultant maps become unstable. Also, the brain mapping exercise can not provide temporal information on the cognitive process. Here we propose a qualitatively different approach to fMRI analysis, named Cognitive Dynamics Estimation (CDE), that estimates how multiple cognitive processes change over time even when behavior or stimulus logs are unavailable. This method transposes the conventional brain mapping; the brain activity pattern at each time point is subject to regression analysis with data-driven maps of cognitive processes as regressors, resulting in the time series of cognitive processes. The estimated time series captured the fluctuation of intensity and timing of cognitive processes on a trial-by-trial basis, which conventional analysis could not capture. Notably, the estimated time series predicted participants’ cognitive ability to perform each psychological task. As an addition to our fMRI analytic toolkit, these results suggest the potential for CDE to elucidate underexplored cognitive phenomena, especially in the temporal domain.