Inter‐subject synchronization of brain responses during natural music listening

Music is a cultural universal and a rich part of the human experience. However, little is known about common brain systems that support the processing and integration of extended, naturalistic ‘real‐world’ music stimuli. We examined this question by presenting extended excerpts of symphonic music, and two pseudomusical stimuli in which the temporal and spectral structure of the Natural Music condition were disrupted, to non‐musician participants undergoing functional brain imaging and analysing synchronized spatiotemporal activity patterns between listeners. We found that music synchronizes brain responses across listeners in bilateral auditory midbrain and thalamus, primary auditory and auditory association cortex, right‐lateralized structures in frontal and parietal cortex, and motor planning regions of the brain. These effects were greater for natural music compared to the pseudo‐musical control conditions. Remarkably, inter‐subject synchronization in the inferior colliculus and medial geniculate nucleus was also greater for the natural music condition, indicating that synchronization at these early stages of auditory processing is not simply driven by spectro‐temporal features of the stimulus. Increased synchronization during music listening was also evident in a right‐hemisphere fronto‐parietal attention network and bilateral cortical regions involved in motor planning. While these brain structures have previously been implicated in various aspects of musical processing, our results are the first to show that these regions track structural elements of a musical stimulus over extended time periods lasting minutes. Our results show that a hierarchical distributed network is synchronized between individuals during the processing of extended musical sequences, and provide new insight into the temporal integration of complex and biologically salient auditory sequences.     

The “silent” imprint of musical training

Playing a musical instrument at a professional level is a complex multimodal task requiring information integration between different brain regions supporting auditory, somatosensory, motor, and cognitive functions. These kinds of task‐specific activations are known to have a profound influence on both the functional and structural architecture of the human brain. However, until now, it is widely unknown whether this specific imprint of musical practice can still be detected during rest when no musical instrument is used. Therefore, we applied high‐density electroencephalography and evaluated whole‐brain functional connectivity as well as small‐world topologies (i.e., node degree) during resting state in a sample of 15 professional musicians and 15 nonmusicians. As expected, musicians demonstrate increased intra‐ and interhemispheric functional connectivity between those brain regions that are typically involved in music perception and production, such as the auditory, the sensorimotor, and prefrontal cortex as well as Broca's area. In addition, mean connectivity within this specific network was positively related to musical skill and the total number of training hours. Thus, we conclude that musical training distinctively shapes intrinsic functional network characteristics in such a manner that its signature can still be detected during a task‐free condition. Hum Brain Mapp 37:536–546, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Effects of musical training on the early auditory cortical representation of pitch transitions as indexed by change‐N1

The effects of musical training on the early auditory cortical response to pitch transitions in music were investigated by use of the change‐N1 component of auditory event‐related potentials. Musicians and non‐musicians were presented with music stimuli comprising a melody and a harmony under various listening conditions. First, when the subjects played a video game and were instructed to ignore the auditory stimuli, the onset of stimuli elicited a typical, fronto‐central onset‐N1, whereas melodic and harmonic pitch transitions within the stimuli elicited so‐called change‐N1s that were more posterior in scalp distribution. The pitch transition change‐N1s, but not onset‐N1, were enhanced in musicians. Second, when the listeners attended to the same stimuli as above to detect infrequently occurring target stimuli, the change‐N1 elicited by pitch changes (in non‐target stimuli) was augmented, in non‐musicians only when the target was easily detectable, and in both musicians and non‐musicians when it was difficult to detect. Thus, the early, obligatory cortical response to pitch transitions during passive listening was chronically enhanced by training in musicians, and, reflecting this training‐induced enhancement, the task‐related modulation of this response was also different between musicians and non‐musicians. These results are the first to demonstrate the long‐term effects of training, short‐term effects of task and the effects of their interaction on the early (~100‐ms) cortical processing of pitch transitions in music. The scalp distributions of these enhancement effects were generally right dominant at temporal electrode sites, suggesting contributions from the radially oriented subcomponent of change‐N1, namely, the Tb (N1c) wave of the T‐complex.     

Hallucination‐ and speech‐specific hypercoupling in frontotemporal auditory and language networks in schizophrenia using combined task‐based fMRI data: An fBIRN study

Hypercoupling of activity in speech‐perception‐specific brain networks has been proposed to play a role in the generation of auditory‐verbal hallucinations (AVHs) in schizophrenia; however, it is unclear whether this hypercoupling extends to nonverbal auditory perception. We investigated this by comparing schizophrenia patients with and without AVHs, and healthy controls, on task‐based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data combining verbal speech perception (SP), inner verbal thought generation (VTG), and nonverbal auditory oddball detection (AO). Data from two previously published fMRI studies were simultaneously analyzed using group constrained principal component analysis for fMRI (group fMRI‐CPCA), which allowed for comparison of task‐related functional brain networks across groups and tasks while holding the brain networks under study constant, leading to determination of the degree to which networks are common to verbal and nonverbal perception conditions, and which show coordinated hyperactivity in hallucinations. Three functional brain networks emerged: (a) auditory‐motor, (b) language processing, and (c) default‐mode (DMN) networks. Combining the AO and sentence tasks allowed the auditory‐motor and language networks to separately emerge, whereas they were aggregated when individual tasks were analyzed. AVH patients showed greater coordinated activity (deactivity for DMN regions) than non‐AVH patients during SP in all networks, but this did not extend to VTG or AO. This suggests that the hypercoupling in AVH patients in speech‐perception‐related brain networks is specific to perceived speech, and does not extend to perceived nonspeech or inner verbal thought generation.     

Angular default mode network connectivity across working memory load

Initially identified during no‐task, baseline conditions, it has now been suggested that the default mode network (DMN) engages during a variety of working memory paradigms through its flexible interactions with other large‐scale brain networks. Nevertheless, its contribution to whole‐brain connectivity dynamics across increasing working memory load has not been explicitly assessed. The aim of our study was to determine which DMN hubs relate to working memory task performance during an fMRI‐based n‐back paradigm with parametric increases in difficulty. Using a voxel‐wise metric, termed the intrinsic connectivity contrast (ICC), we found that the bilateral angular gyri (core DMN hubs) displayed the greatest change in global connectivity across three levels of n‐back task load. Subsequent seed‐based functional connectivity analysis revealed that the angular DMN regions robustly interact with other large‐scale brain networks, suggesting a potential involvement in the global integration of information. Further support for this hypothesis comes from the significant correlations we found between angular gyri connectivity and reaction times to correct responses. The implication from our study is that the DMN is actively involved during the n‐back task and thus plays an important role related to working memory, with its core angular regions contributing to the changes in global brain connectivity in response to increasing environmental demands. Hum Brain Mapp 38:41–52, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Coordinated plasticity in brainstem and auditory cortex contributes to enhanced categorical speech perception in musicians

Musicianship is associated with neuroplastic changes in brainstem and cortical structures, as well as improved acuity for behaviorally relevant sounds including speech. However, further advance in the field depends on characterizing how neuroplastic changes in brainstem and cortical speech processing relate to one another and to speech‐listening behaviors. Here, we show that subcortical and cortical neural plasticity interact to yield the linguistic advantages observed with musicianship. We compared brainstem and cortical neuroelectric responses elicited by a series of vowels that differed along a categorical speech continuum in amateur musicians and non‐musicians. Musicians obtained steeper identification functions and classified speech sounds more rapidly than non‐musicians. Behavioral advantages coincided with more robust and temporally coherent brainstem phase‐locking to salient speech cues (voice pitch and formant information) coupled with increased amplitude in cortical‐evoked responses, implying an overall enhancement in the nervous system's responsiveness to speech. Musicians' subcortical and cortical neural enhancements (but not behavioral measures) were correlated with their years of formal music training. Associations between multi‐level neural responses were also stronger in musically trained listeners, and were better predictors of speech perception than in non‐musicians. Results suggest that musicianship modulates speech representations at multiple tiers of the auditory pathway, and strengthens the correspondence of processing between subcortical and cortical areas to allow neural activity to carry more behaviorally relevant information. We infer that musicians have a refined hierarchy of internalized representations for auditory objects at both pre‐attentive and attentive levels that supplies more faithful phonemic templates to decision mechanisms governing linguistic operations.     

Sensory‐motor brain network connectivity for speech comprehension

The act of listening to speech activates a large network of brain areas. In the present work, a novel data‐driven technique (the combination of independent component analysis and Granger causality) was used to extract brain network dynamics from an fMRI study of passive listening to Words, Pseudo‐Words, and Reverse‐played words. Using this method we show the functional connectivity modulations among classical language regions (Broca's and Wernicke's areas) and inferior parietal, somatosensory, and motor areas and right cerebellum. Word listening elicited a compact pattern of connectivity within a parieto‐somato‐motor network and between the superior temporal and inferior frontal gyri. Pseudo‐Word stimuli induced activities similar to the Word condition, which were characterized by a highly recurrent connectivity pattern, mostly driven by the temporal lobe activity. Also the Reversed‐Word condition revealed an important influence of temporal cortices, but no integrated activity of the parieto‐somato‐motor network. In parallel, the right cerebellum lost its functional connection with motor areas, present in both Word and Pseudo‐Word listening. The inability of the participant to produce the Reversed‐Word stimuli also evidenced two separate networks: the first was driven by frontal areas and the right cerebellum toward somatosensory cortices; the second was triggered by temporal and parietal sites towards motor areas. Summing up, our results suggest that semantic content modulates the general compactness of network dynamics as well as the balance between frontal and temporal language areas in driving those dynamics. The degree of reproducibility of auditory speech material modulates the connectivity pattern within and toward somatosensory and motor areas. Hum Brain Mapp, 2010. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Impairments in musical abilities reflected in the auditory brainstem: evidence from congenital amusia

Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic condition, characterized by a deficit in music perception and production, not explained by hearing loss, brain damage or lack of exposure to music. Despite inferior musical performance, amusics exhibit normal auditory cortical responses, with abnormal neural correlates suggested to lie beyond auditory cortices. Here we show, using auditory brainstem responses to complex sounds in humans, that fine‐grained automatic processing of sounds is impoverished in amusia. Compared with matched non‐musician controls, spectral amplitude was decreased in amusics for higher harmonic components of the auditory brainstem response. We also found a delayed response to the early transient aspects of the auditory stimulus in amusics. Neural measures of spectral amplitude and response timing correlated with participants' behavioral assessments of music processing. We demonstrate, for the first time, that amusia affects how complex acoustic signals are processed in the auditory brainstem. This neural signature of amusia mirrors what is observed in musicians, such that the aspects of the auditory brainstem responses that are enhanced in musicians are degraded in amusics. By showing that gradients of music abilities are reflected in the auditory brainstem, our findings have implications not only for current models of amusia but also for auditory functioning in general.     

Differences between child and adult large‐scale functional brain networks for reading tasks

Reading is an important high‐level cognitive function of the human brain, requiring interaction among multiple brain regions. Revealing differences between children's large‐scale functional brain networks for reading tasks and those of adults helps us to understand how the functional network changes over reading development. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging data of 17 adults (19–28 years old) and 16 children (11–13 years old), and graph theoretical analyses to investigate age‐related changes in large‐scale functional networks during rhyming and meaning judgment tasks on pairs of visually presented Chinese characters. We found that: (1) adults had stronger inter‐regional connectivity and nodal degree in occipital regions, while children had stronger inter‐regional connectivity in temporal regions, suggesting that adults rely more on visual orthographic processing whereas children rely more on auditory phonological processing during reading. (2) Only adults showed between‐task differences in inter‐regional connectivity and nodal degree, whereas children showed no task differences, suggesting the topological organization of adults’ reading network is more specialized. (3) Children showed greater inter‐regional connectivity and nodal degree than adults in multiple subcortical regions; the hubs in children were more distributed in subcortical regions while the hubs in adults were more distributed in cortical regions. These findings suggest that reading development is manifested by a shift from reliance on subcortical to cortical regions. Taken together, our study suggests that Chinese reading development is supported by developmental changes in brain connectivity properties, and some of these changes may be domain‐general while others may be specific to the reading domain.     

MEG Intersubject Phase Locking of Stimulus-Driven Activity during Naturalistic Speech Listening Correlates with Musical Training

Musical training is associated with increased structural and functional connectivity between auditory sensory areas and higher-order brain networks involved in speech and motor processing. Whether such changed connectivity patterns facilitate the cortical propagation of speech information in musicians remains poorly understood. We here used magnetoencephalography (MEG) source imaging and a novel seed-based intersubject phase-locking approach to investigate the effects of musical training on the interregional synchronization of stimulus-driven neural responses during listening to naturalistic continuous speech presented in silence. MEG data were obtained from 20 young human subjects (both sexes) with different degrees of musical training. Our data show robust bilateral patterns of stimulus-driven interregional phase synchronization between auditory cortex and frontotemporal brain regions previously associated with speech processing. Stimulus-driven phase locking was maximal in the delta band, but was also observed in the theta and alpha bands. The individual duration of musical training was positively associated with the magnitude of stimulus-driven alpha-band phase locking between auditory cortex and parts of the dorsal and ventral auditory processing streams. These findings provide evidence for a positive relationship between musical training and the propagation of speech-related information between auditory sensory areas and higher-order processing networks, even when speech is presented in silence. We suggest that the increased synchronization of higher-order cortical regions to auditory cortex may contribute to the previously described musician advantage in processing speech in background noise.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Musical training has been associated with widespread structural and functional brain plasticity. It has been suggested that these changes benefit the production and perception of music but can also translate to other domains of auditory processing, such as speech. We developed a new magnetoencephalography intersubject analysis approach to study the cortical synchronization of stimulus-driven neural responses during the perception of continuous natural speech and its relationship to individual musical training. Our results provide evidence that musical training is associated with higher synchronization of stimulus-driven activity between brain regions involved in early auditory sensory and higher-order processing. We suggest that the increased synchronized propagation of speech information may contribute to the previously described musician advantage in processing speech in background noise.     

Insula‐based networks in professional musicians: Evidence for increased functional connectivity during resting state fMRI

Despite considerable research on experience‐dependent neuroplasticity in professional musicians, detailed understanding of an involvement of the insula is only now beginning to emerge. We investigated the effects of musical training on intrinsic insula‐based connectivity in professional classical musicians relative to nonmusicians using resting‐state functional MRI. Following a tripartite scheme of insula subdivisions, coactivation profiles were analyzed for the posterior, ventral anterior, and dorsal anterior insula in both hemispheres. While whole‐brain connectivity across all participants confirmed previously reported patterns, between‐group comparisons revealed increased insular connectivity in musicians relative to nonmusicians. Coactivated regions encompassed constituents of large‐scale networks involved in salience detection (e.g., anterior and middle cingulate cortex), affective processing (e.g., orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole), and higher order cognition (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction), whereas no differences were found for the reversed group contrast. Importantly, these connectivity patterns were stronger in musicians who experienced more years of musical practice, including also sensorimotor regions involved in music performance (M1 hand area, S1, A1, and SMA). We conclude that musical training triggers significant reorganization in insula‐based networks, potentially facilitating high‐level cognitive and affective functions associated with the fast integration of multisensory information in the context of music performance. Hum Brain Mapp 38:4834–4849, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Impaired development of intrinsic connectivity networks in children with medically intractable localization‐related epilepsy

Typical childhood development is characterized by the emergence of intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs) by way of internetwork segregation and intranetwork integration. The impact of childhood epilepsy on the maturation of ICNs is, however, poorly understood. The developmental trajectory of ICNs in 26 children (8–17 years) with localization‐related epilepsy and 28 propensity‐score matched controls was evaluated using graph theoretical analysis of whole brain connectomes from resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Children with epilepsy demonstrated impaired development of regional hubs in nodes of the salience and default mode networks (DMN). Seed‐based connectivity and hierarchical clustering analysis revealed significantly decreased intranetwork connections, and greater internetwork connectivity in children with epilepsy compared to controls. Significant interactions were identified between epilepsy duration and the expected developmental trajectory of ICNs, indicating that prolonged epilepsy may cause progressive alternations in large‐scale networks throughout childhood. DMN integration was also associated with better working memory, whereas internetwork segregation was associated with higher full‐scale intelligence quotient scores. Furthermore, subgroup analyses revealed the thalamus, hippocampus, and caudate were weaker hubs in children with secondarily generalized seizures, relative to other patient subgroups. Our findings underscore that epilepsy interferes with the developmental trajectory of brain networks underlying cognition, providing evidence supporting the early treatment of affected children. Hum Brain Mapp 35:5686–5700, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The sound of music: differentiating musicians using a fast, musical multi-feature mismatch negativity paradigm

Musicians' skills in auditory processing depend highly on instrument, performance practice, and on level of expertise. Yet, it is not known though whether the style/genre of music might shape auditory processing in the brains of musicians. Here, we aimed at tackling the role of musical style/genre on modulating neural and behavioral responses to changes in musical features. Using a novel, fast and musical sounding multi-feature paradigm, we measured the mismatch negativity (MMN), a pre-attentive brain response, to six types of musical feature change in musicians playing three distinct styles of music (classical, jazz, rock/pop) and in non-musicians. Jazz and classical musicians scored higher in the musical aptitude test than band musicians and non-musicians, especially with regards to tonal abilities. These results were extended by the MMN findings: jazz musicians had larger MMN-amplitude than all other experimental groups across the six different sound features, indicating a greater overall sensitivity to auditory outliers. In particular, we found enhanced processing of pith and sliding up to pitches in jazz musicians only. Furthermore, we observed a more frontal MMN to pitch and location compared to the other deviants in jazz musicians and left lateralization of the MMN to timbre in classical musicians. These findings indicate that the characteristics of the style/genre of music played by musicians influence their perceptual skills and the brain processing of sound features embedded in a musical context. Musicians' brain is hence shaped by the type of training, musical style/genre, and listening experiences.     

Emotions amplify speaker–listener neural alignment

Individuals often align their emotional states during conversation. Here, we reveal how such emotional alignment is reflected in synchronization of brain activity across speakers and listeners. Two “speaker” subjects told emotional and neutral autobiographical stories while their hemodynamic brain activity was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The stories were recorded and played back to 16 “listener” subjects during fMRI. After scanning, both speakers and listeners rated the moment‐to‐moment valence and arousal of the stories. Time‐varying similarity of the blood‐oxygenation‐level‐dependent (BOLD) time series was quantified by intersubject phase synchronization (ISPS) between speaker–listener pairs. Telling and listening to the stories elicited similar emotions across speaker–listener pairs. Arousal was associated with increased speaker–listener neural synchronization in brain regions supporting attentional, auditory, somatosensory, and motor processing. Valence was associated with increased speaker–listener neural synchronization in brain regions involved in emotional processing, including amygdala, hippocampus, and temporal pole. Speaker–listener synchronization of subjective feelings of arousal was associated with increased neural synchronization in somatosensory and subcortical brain regions; synchronization of valence was associated with neural synchronization in parietal cortices and midline structures. We propose that emotion‐dependent speaker–listener neural synchronization is associated with emotional contagion, thereby implying that listeners reproduce some aspects of the speaker's emotional state at the neural level.     

Aging and functional brain networks

Aging is associated with changes in human brain anatomy and function and cognitive decline. Recent studies suggest the aging decline of major functional connectivity hubs in the 'default-mode' network (DMN). Aging effects on other networks, however, are largely unknown. We hypothesized that aging would be associated with a decline of short- and long-range functional connectivity density (FCD) hubs in the DMN. To test this hypothesis, we evaluated resting-state data sets corresponding to 913 healthy subjects from a public magnetic resonance imaging database using functional connectivity density mapping (FCDM), a voxelwise and data-driven approach, together with parallel computing. Aging was associated with pronounced long-range FCD decreases in DMN and dorsal attention network (DAN) and with increases in somatosensory and subcortical networks. Aging effects in these networks were stronger for long-range than for short-range FCD and were also detected at the level of the main functional hubs. Females had higher short- and long-range FCD in DMN and lower FCD in the somatosensory network than males, but the gender by age interaction effects were not significant for any of the networks or hubs. These findings suggest that long-range connections may be more vulnerable to aging effects than short-range connections and that, in addition to the DMN, the DAN is also sensitive to aging effects, which could underlie the deterioration of attention processes that occurs with aging.     

Activated brain regions in musicians during an ensemble: a PET study

As in visual processing, we speculated that, in music processing, different brain regions would activate according to the mode of music listening. Using motets by a famous composer, we studied changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) with positron emission tomography associated with concentrating on the alto-part within the harmony (alto-part-listening condition) compared to listening to the harmony as a whole (harmony-listening condition). The alto-part-listening condition was associated with bilateral increases of rCBF in superior parietal lobules, precunei, premotor areas and orbital frontal cortices. Superior parietal lobules are likely to be responsible for auditory selective attention to the alto part within the harmony and the analysis of tone pitch on a mental score. The precuneus possibly participated in writing tones of the alto part on a mental score. Based on our findings, we propose that both auditory selective attention and analytic processing play an important role in concentrating on a certain vocal part within a harmony. During the harmony-listening condition, temporal poles, the anterior portion of the cingulate gyrus, occipital cortex and the medial surface of the cerebellum were bilaterally activated. Further studies are necessary to clarify the difference in music processing between musicians and nonmusicians.     

Bihemispheric network dynamics coordinating vocal feedback control

Modulation of vocal pitch is a key speech feature that conveys important linguistic and affective information. Auditory feedback is used to monitor and maintain pitch. We examined induced neural high gamma power (HGP) (65–150 Hz) using magnetoencephalography during pitch feedback control. Participants phonated into a microphone while hearing their auditory feedback through headphones. During each phonation, a single real‐time 400 ms pitch shift was applied to the auditory feedback. Participants compensated by rapidly changing their pitch to oppose the pitch shifts. This behavioral change required coordination of the neural speech motor control network, including integration of auditory and somatosensory feedback to initiate change in motor plans. We found increases in HGP across both hemispheres within 200 ms of pitch shifts, covering left sensory and right premotor, parietal, temporal, and frontal regions, involved in sensory detection and processing of the pitch shift. Later responses to pitch shifts (200–300 ms) were right dominant, in parietal, frontal, and temporal regions. Timing of activity in these regions indicates their role in coordinating motor change and detecting and processing of the sensory consequences of this change. Subtracting out cortical responses during passive listening to recordings of the phonations isolated HGP increases specific to speech production, highlighting right parietal and premotor cortex, and left posterior temporal cortex involvement in the motor response. Correlation of HGP with behavioral compensation demonstrated right frontal region involvement in modulating participant's compensatory response. This study highlights the bihemispheric sensorimotor cortical network involvement in auditory feedback‐based control of vocal pitch. Hum Brain Mapp 37:1474‐1485, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Musical training induces functional and structural auditory‐motor network plasticity in young adults

Playing music requires a strong coupling of perception and action mediated by multimodal integration of brain regions, which can be described as network connections measured by anatomical and functional correlations between regions. However, the structural and functional connectivities within and between the auditory and sensorimotor networks after long‐term musical training remain largely uninvestigated. Here, we compared the structural connectivity (SC) and resting‐state functional connectivity (rs‐FC) within and between the two networks in 29 novice healthy young adults before and after musical training (piano) with those of another 27 novice participants who were evaluated longitudinally but with no intervention. In addition, a correlation analysis was performed between the changes in FC or SC with practice time in the training group. As expected, participants in the training group showed increased FC within the sensorimotor network and increased FC and SC of the auditory‐motor network after musical training. Interestingly, we further found that the changes in FC within the sensorimotor network and SC of the auditory‐motor network were positively correlated with practice time. Our results indicate that musical training could induce enhanced local interaction and global integration between musical performance‐related regions, which provides insights into the mechanism of brain plasticity in young adults.     

Correspondence between evoked and intrinsic functional brain network configurations

Much of the literature exploring differences between intrinsic and task‐evoked brain architectures has examined changes in functional connectivity patterns between specific brain regions. While informative, this approach overlooks important overall functional changes in hub organization and network topology that may provide insights about differences in integration between intrinsic and task‐evoked states. Examination of changes in overall network organization, such as a change in the concentration of hub nodes or a quantitative change in network organization, is important for understanding the underlying processes that differ between intrinsic and task‐evoked brain architectures. The present study used graph‐theoretical techniques applied to publicly available neuroimaging data collected from a large sample of individuals (N = 202), and a within‐subject design where resting‐state and several task scans were collected from each participant as part of the Human Connectome Project. We demonstrate that differences between intrinsic and task‐evoked brain networks are characterized by a task‐general shift in high‐connectivity hubs from primarily sensorimotor/auditory processing areas during the intrinsic state to executive control/salience network areas during task performance. In addition, we demonstrate that differences between intrinsic and task‐evoked architectures are associated with changes in overall network organization, such as increases in network clustering, global efficiency and integration between modules. These findings offer a new perspective on the principles guiding functional brain organization by identifying unique and divergent properties of overall network organization between the resting‐state and task performance. Hum Brain Mapp 38:1992–2007, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.