How a fluctuating brain network may make us better thinkers

For the past 100 years, scientists have understood that different areas of the brain serve unique purposes. Only recently have they realized that the organization isn’t static. Rather than having strictly defined routes of communication between different areas, the level of coordination between different parts of the brain seems to ebb and flow. Now, by analyzing the brains of a large number of people at rest or carrying out complex tasks, researchers at have learned that the integration between those brain regions also fluctuates. When the brain is more integrated, people do better on complex tasks.