Brain Networks Underlying Eye’s Pupil Dynamics
Open accessAbstract
Phasic changes in eye's pupil diameter have been repeatedly observed during cognitive, emotional and behavioral activity in mammals. Although pupil diameter is known to be associated with noradrenergic firing in the pontine Locus Coeruleus (LC), thus far the causal chain coupling spontaneous pupil dynamics to specific cortical brain networks remains unknown. In the present study, we acquired steady-state blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data combined with eye-tracking pupillometry from fifteen healthy subjects that were trained to maintain a constant attentional load. Regression analysis revealed widespread visual and sensorimotor BOLD-fMRI deactivations correlated with pupil diameter. Furthermore, we found BOLD-fMRI activations correlated with pupil diameter change rate within a set of brain regions known to be implicated in selective attention, salience, error-detection and decision-making. These regions included LC, thalamus, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), dorsal anterior cingulate and paracingulate cortex (dACC/PaCC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and right anterior insular cortex (rAIC). Granger-causality analysis performed on these regions yielded a complex pattern of interdependence, wherein LC and pupil dynamics were far apart in the network and separated by several cortical stages. Functional connectivity (FC) analysis revealed the ubiquitous presence of the superior frontal gyrus (SFG) in the networks identified by the brain regions correlated to the pupil diameter change rate. No significant correlations were observed between pupil dynamics, regional activation and behavioral performance. Based on the involved brain regions, we speculate that pupil dynamics reflects brain processing implicated in changes between self- and environment-directed awareness.
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Pupil diameter was fairly stable at around 6.5-7 mm on average during all fMRI and 1H-fMRS epochs across conditions.
“Pupil diameter, an index of the noradrenergic tone (DiNuzzo et al., 2019), was fairly stable at around 6.5–7 mm on average during all fMRI (Figure 1—figure supplement 2) and 1H-fMRS (Figure 3—figure supplement 2) epochs (one-way ANOVA, p = 0.99 and p = 0.98, for fMRI runs 1 and 2, respectively, and p = 0.98 and p = 0.96 for 1H-fMRS runs 1 and 2, respectively) across conditions (see also Video 1),”
From Perception is associated with the brain’s metabolic response to sensory stimulation (2022) · cites this paper as DiNuzzo et al., 2019
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Perception is associated with the brain’s metabolic response to sensory stimulation
DiNuzzo, M., Mangia, S., Moraschi, M., Mascali, D., Hagberg, G. E., & Giove, F. (2022) · eLife · doi:10.7554/elife.71016 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
“…might be an indicator of sensory perception, in keeping with the dynamics of lactate and glutamate across the sleep–wake cycle (Aalling et al., 2018; DiNuzzo and Nedergaard, 2017; Naylor et al., 2012; Naylor et al., 2011) as well as with the relation between lactate and arousal (Zuend et al.,…”
BackgroundSelf-citation
- Authors
- DiNuzzo, M., Mascali, D., Moraschi, M., Bussu, G., Maugeri, L., Mangini, F., Fratini, M., & Giove, F.
- Affiliations
- Fondazione Santa Lucia (IT)
- Centro Ricerche Enrico Fermi (IT)
- Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
- Istituto di Nanotecnologia (IT)
- Corresponding author
- DiNuzzo, Mauro
- ORCID
- Venue
- Frontiers in Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2019-09-18
- Volume
- 13
- Pages
- 965-965
- ISSN
- 1662-453X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6759985
- OpenAlex
- W2971177595
- Cited by
- 74
- References
- 67
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 4.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Institutional Research Information System (Università degli Studi di Brescia) (submittedVersion)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Ministero della Salute (GR-2013-02358177)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Keywords
- pupil dynamics, locus coeruleus, cortical deactivation, functional connectivity, Granger causality, superior frontal gyrus, posterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, orbitofrontal cortex, attentional load, pupillometry, BOLD fMRI
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