The fronto-parietal network is not a flexible hub during naturalistic cognition

The fronto‐parietal network (FPN) is crucial for cognitively demanding tasks as it selectively represents task‐relevant information and controls other brain regions. To implement these functions, it has been argued that it is a flexible hub that reconfigures its functional connectivity with other networks. This was supported by a study in which a set of demanding tasks were presented, that varied in their sensory features, comparison rules, and response mappings, and the FPN showed greater reconfiguration of functional connectivity between tasks than any other network. However, this task set was designed to engage the FPN, and therefore it remains an open question whether the FPN is in a flexible hub in general or only for such task sets. Using two freely available datasets (Experiment 1, N = 15, Experiment 2, N = 644), we examined dynamic functional connectivity during naturalistic cognition, while participants watched a movie. Many differences in the flexibility were found across networks but the FPN was not the most flexible hub in the brain, during either movie for any of two measures, using a regression model or a correlation model and across five timescales. We, therefore, conclude that the FPN does not have the trait of being a flexible hub, although it may adopt this state for particular task sets.
The fronto‐parietal network (FPN) is crucial for cognitively demanding tasks as it selectively represents task‐relevant information and controls other brain regions. It has been argued that it is a flexible hub that reconfigures its functional connectivity with other networks. Using two freely available datasets (Experiment 1, N = 15, Experiment 2, N = 644), we examined dynamic functional connectivity during naturalistic cognition, while participants watched a movie. Many differences in the flexibility were found across networks but the FPN was not the most flexible hub in the brain. We, therefore, conclude that the FPN does not have the trait of being a flexible hub, although it may adopt this state for particular task sets.