Functional connectivity predicts changes in attention observed across minutes, days, and months

Significance Sustained attention varies across people and fluctuates over time. Patterns of functional brain connectivity predict a person’s overall sustained attention ability, but do they predict changes in attentional state? Here, across five studies, we show that the same functional connections that predict overall sustained attention ability predict attention changes observed over minutes, days, weeks, and months. Furthermore, these functional connections are sensitive to cognitive and attentional state changes induced by anesthesia. Thus, fluctuations in the same functional connections that predict attention in part reflect fluctuations in attentional state. The ability to sustain attention differs across people and changes within a single person over time. Although recent work has demonstrated that patterns of functional brain connectivity predict individual differences in sustained attention, whether these same patterns capture fluctuations in attention within individuals remains unclear. Here, across five independent studies, we demonstrate that the sustained attention connectome-based predictive model (CPM), a validated model of sustained attention function, generalizes to predict attentional state from data collected across minutes, days, weeks, and months. Furthermore, the sustained attention CPM is sensitive to within-subject state changes induced by propofol as well as sevoflurane, such that individuals show functional connectivity signatures of stronger attentional states when awake than when under deep sedation and light anesthesia. Together, these results demonstrate that fluctuations in attentional state reflect variability in the same functional connectivity patterns that predict individual differences in sustained attention.