Focal neural perturbations reshape low-dimensional trajectories of brain activity supporting cognitive performance

The emergence of distributed patterns of neural activity supporting brain functions and behavior can be understood by study of the brain’s low-dimensional topology. Functional neuroimaging demonstrates that brain activity linked to adaptive behavior is constrained to low-dimensional manifolds. In human participants, we tested whether these low-dimensional constraints preserve working memory performance following local neuronal perturbations. We combined multi-session functional magnetic resonance imaging, non-invasive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and methods translated from the fields of complex systems and computational biology to assess the functional link between changes in local neural activity and the reshaping of task-related low dimensional trajectories of brain activity. We show that specific reconfigurations of low-dimensional trajectories of brain activity sustain effective working memory performance following TMS manipulation of local activity on, but not off, the space traversed by these trajectories. We highlight an association between the multi-scale changes in brain activity underpinning cognitive function.