papers_selected.json

[
  {
    "pmid": "41886027",
    "title": "A comprehensive analysis of brain network complexity in task-based fMRI using entropy: systematic review.",
    "journal": "Brain imaging and behavior",
    "year": "2026",
    "authors": [
      "J Park",
      "N Xu",
      "M Nezafati"
    ],
    "doi": "10.3969/j.issn.1673-5374.2012.08.002",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4421932",
    "abstract": "Entropy-based analysis is increasingly used in task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to quantify neural signal complexity and information dynamics, but variation in entropy definitions, parameter choices, and analytic scope can limit cross-study comparability. To systematically review how entropy measures are implemented, parameterized, and interpreted in task-based fMRI studies in healthy human subjects, focusing on methodological practice. Web of Science was searched using the keywords “fMRI” and “entropy” for the period 2000–2023, restricted to journal articles, proceedings papers, review articles, meeting abstracts, and book chapters. Included studies used task-based fMRI, applied entropy-based quantitative measures, involved healthy human participants, and reported original empirical findings or methodological applications. Non-human, clinical, and resting-state studies were excluded. Records were screened by verifying whether “fMRI” and “entropy” appeared in the title, keywords, Keywords Plus, or abstract. Extracted items included entropy type, analytic scope (regional/voxel-wise, network-level, connectivity-based), parameter and reporting details, task types, and preprocessing context where available. Data were synthesized using structured narrative methods because meta-analysis was not appropriate given differences in entropy definitions, parameterization, task types, and outcome metrics. Risk of bias was assessed with an adapted Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) checklist (Joanna Briggs Institute, 2017). Database searches yielded 1,313 records. 274 were screened and 234 full texts assessed. 92 studies met inclusion criteria. Exclusions at full-text were primarily resting-state studies (n = 81), clinical populations (n = 42), and non-human studies (n = 19). Across the 92 included studies, Shannon entropy predominated (78.3%), followed by sample entropy (9.78%), transfer entropy (4.35%), multiscale entropy (3.26%), approximate entropy (3.26%), and multiple-entropy approaches (1.09%). Entropy measures were found to be matched with distinct methodological roles. Approximate and sample entropy were commonly used for regional or voxel-wise signal regularity, multiscale entropy for multi–time scale complexity (often at the network level), transfer entropy for directed connectivity, and Shannon entropy for broad applications including machine-learning feature and validation use. Evidence synthesis was constrained by inconsistency in entropy formulations, parameter reporting, preprocessing decisions, and outcome metrics. Formal heterogeneity testing, subgroup analyses, and sensitivity analyses were not conducted, and results were summarized descriptively. Task-based fMRI entropy research is methodologically diverse but consistently demonstrates the feasibility of using entropy to characterize task-related brain complexity across different analytic levels. The prevalent use of Shannon entropy and inconsistent parameter/reporting practices underscore the need for clearer, standardized reporting and reproducible implementation guidance to improve comparability across studies.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4421932/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41970694",
    "title": "Naturalistic movie viewing is an effective functional localizer of the fusiform face area in adolescents with and without autism.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2026",
    "authors": [
      "CJ Steeby",
      "GN Miller",
      "A Castro Palacin"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/hbm.20767",
    "pmc_id": "PMC2748172",
    "abstract": "Task-based \"localizer\" neuroimaging protocols are often used to identify specific functional areas in individual participants. Conventionally, these tasks can be unengaging, leading to increased motion and scan fatigue, especially for populations which may struggle with lengthy scans. Dynamic, naturalistic stimuli, like entertaining movies, offer a potential alternative with higher participant engagement and improved data quality. Here, we evaluated whether a short Pixar movie, Partly Cloudy, could serve as a reasonable and useful replacement for a traditional fusiform face area (FFA) localizer in a group of adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We found that individualized FFA localizations derived from a Pixar movie, Partly Cloudy, were largely consistent with those produced by a traditional localizer. Peak activation locations showed no difference between localizer types; measures of activation pattern and magnitude were also largely the same, except that the occipital face area (OFA) demonstrated more task than movie activation and the parahippocampal place area (PPA) demonstrated more movie than task activation. However, applying these FFA individualized ROIs (iROIs) to independent task data revealed that traditional localizer iROIs still produce more face-selective activations. We also demonstrated that the movie viewing helps to reduce motion levels in both adolescents with and without autism relative to the traditional localizer task. Hence, while they may not localize face-selective regions of the FFA as robustly as traditional task-based localizers, movie localizers may be an appropriate, or even preferable, choice for fMRI studies in populations which struggle to tolerate lengthy scans, such as individuals with autism, and in paradigms that must rapidly localize multiple functional regions.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2748172/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41537052",
    "title": "Considering brain state for individualized functional connectivity-based rTMS.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2026",
    "authors": [
      "H Shearer",
      "J Eilbott",
      "F Vila-Rodriguez"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/hbm.23517",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6867176",
    "abstract": "Recent endeavors to optimize the efficacy of repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) treatment have focused on locating individualized stimulation targets using functional connectivity derived from functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans. Practically, this approach involves three main stages: target discovery, target localization, and treatment. As of now, each stage is typically conducted while participants are \"at rest\", meaning they are not performing a task or being presented with a stimulus. While growing evidence suggests that the effects of TMS are sensitive to the state of the brain at the time of stimulation, brain state has largely been overlooked during the first two stages (target discovery and localization). Here, we consider the potential importance of brain state at each stage of individualized rTMS, reviewing the relevant (and interdisciplinary) literature, and providing some exploratory example cross-state analyses. We also explore how manipulating and constraining brain state with tasks or movie-watching may provide opportunities to improve the reliability of individualized rTMS targets.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6867176/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41947425",
    "title": "Resting-State and Task Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Network Topology Metrics With no Threshold Selection to Predict Cognition.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2026",
    "authors": [
      "CHA Billaud",
      "J Yu"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.119946",
    "pmc_id": "PMC11037888",
    "abstract": "Network topology measures characterise brain networks' organisation. Graph theoretical approaches have shown fMRI topology metrics' association with cognitive performance. Because arbitrary connectivity threshold selection biases such metrics, alternatives including the minimum spanning tree (MST) and novel measures following principles of persistent homology were proposed. The present study compared alternative and graph theoretical metrics in association with cognition for resting-state and task-fMRI. Functional connectivity matrices were computed from Human Connectome Project (Young Adult) fMRI scans during resting-state, working memory (WM), gambling, language, motor, relational processing, social cognition, and movie-watching conditions. Global efficiency, clustering coefficient (at three thresholds), diameter, leaf fraction (LF), backbone strength (BS), and cycle strength were measured. Each was tested in association with cognitive test scores. ResultsBS significantly predicted general cognitive performance, specifically progressive matrices score, composite fluid and crystallised cognition, vocabulary, spatial orientation, and WM. Diameter significantly predicted WM. WM task BS outperformed the predictive performance of graph theory measures, but not at rest, where MST LF outperformed other measures. Stronger associations were observed between cognitive test scores and topology measures derived from task-based fMRI, especially the N-Back task, as opposed to resting-state fMRI. Among task-based topology measures, BS was the most strongly related to cognition.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11037888/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41491726",
    "title": "Mapping functional homologies between human and marmoset brain networks using movie-driven ultra-high field fMRI.",
    "journal": "Communications biology",
    "year": "2026",
    "authors": [
      "A Zanini",
      "A Dureux",
      "RS Menon"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1038/nature18933",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4990127",
    "abstract": "Naturalistic stimuli, such as movies, offer a powerful tool for probing functional brain organization across species. Using movie-driven functional magnetic resonance imaging (md-fMRI), we recorded brain activity in humans and awake marmosets exposed to the same dynamic audiovisual stimulus. We applied tensor independent component analysis (tICA) to identify functional networks in each species, hierarchically cluster them, and examine their within- and between-species temporal correlations to assess functional homologies. We found strong interspecies correspondence in core sensory networks, particularly those involved in visual and auditory processing, suggesting conserved mechanisms for sensory integration. In contrast, networks associated with higher-order cognition, including prefrontal and temporoparietal areas, were observed primarily in humans, highlighting species-specific specializations. These findings demonstrate the value of naturalistic paradigms and data-driven approaches in revealing both shared and divergent brain architectures. By openly sharing our data and pipelines, we aim to advance the marmoset as a model for investigating the evolutionary foundations of brain function.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4990127/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41412131",
    "title": "Linguistic coupling between neural systems for speech production and comprehension during real-time dyadic conversations.",
    "journal": "Neuron",
    "year": "2026",
    "authors": [
      "Z Zada",
      "SA Nastase",
      "S Speer"
    ],
    "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.5942281",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3146590",
    "abstract": "The core use of human language is to send complex ideas from one mind to another. In everyday conversations, comprehension and production are intertwined, as speakers and listeners alternate roles. Nonetheless, the neural systems underlying these faculties are typically studied in isolation, using paradigms that cannot capture interactive communication. Here, we used fMRI hyperscanning to simultaneously record dyads engaged in real-time conversations. We used language model embeddings to quantify the degree to which production and comprehension systems rely on shared neural representations, both within and across brains. We found that both processes key into overlapping neural systems, with similar neural tuning for both processes, spanning the cortical language network. Speaker-listener coupling extended beyond the language network into areas associated with social cognition. Our results suggest that the neural systems for speech comprehension and production align with common linguistic features encoded in a broad cortical network for language and communication.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3146590/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41772025",
    "title": "The role of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in dynamic attitude changes in naturalistic settings.",
    "journal": "Communications biology",
    "year": "2026",
    "authors": [
      "H Li",
      "S Yao",
      "Y Zhang"
    ],
    "doi": "10.21105/joss.00862",
    "pmc_id": "PMC5303634",
    "abstract": "Attitudes change gradually and spontaneously in daily life, yet the neural mechanisms supporting such dynamic shifts remain poorly understood. Leveraging naturalistic fMRI paradigms across two studies, we investigated how neural dynamics track and implement attitude change during exposure to persuasive arguments. Our findings highlight the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) as a central hub in this process. Individuals with more similar trajectories of attitude change exhibited greater similarity in the temporal dynamics of dACC activity and its functional connectivity with other brain regions, particularly the default mode network (DMN). These neural dynamics further predicted whether an individual changed their attitude over time, and at the precise moment of change, dACC-centered connectivity predicted the direction of that change. Additionally, individuals with higher intolerance of uncertainty (IU) showed stronger coupling between neural and behavioral similarity, suggesting that IU may serve as a trait-level modulator of this neural process. Together, our findings provide a dACC-centered, process-level account of the neural mechanisms underlying dynamic attitude change, bridging the gap between controlled laboratory research and real-time, naturalistic attitude change in daily life.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5303634/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41852942",
    "title": "Resilience-related neural similarity during naturalistic movie watching.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2026",
    "authors": [
      "S Ye",
      "LR Bätz",
      "A Jain"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/scan/nsae086",
    "pmc_id": "PMC11642607",
    "abstract": "Psychological resilience protects individuals against the negative consequences of exposure to adversity. Despite increasing attention given to resilience for its role in maintaining mental health, a clear conceptualization of resilience remains elusive, and the intricacies of its neural correlates are poorly understood. Here, we recorded brain activity in healthy young adults using a 7T MRI scanner while they naturally watched two movie clips, one with neutral content and another with negative content. Stronger and more extensive neural similarity, as estimated by inter-subject correlation, was observed in response to the negative movie compared with the neutral movie. Moreover, we found that high-resilience individuals had similar neural activities to their peers, while low-resilience individuals showed more variable neural activities. A secondary analysis examined the relationship between ISCs and an additional self-report behavioral measure of interest, Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU). IU is a personality trait known to bias perception and cognition and has been proposed to be related to resilience. We found that higher IU was associated with attenuated resilience-related neural similarity in attention-related brain regions, suggesting that IU may undermine resilience by altering attentional focus toward specific aspects of the external environment. We propose that the similarity of neural responses among resilient individuals highlights adaptive emotional processing engaging multiple brain systems. Conversely, the variability in neural responses among low-resilience groups indicates vulnerability to adverse psychological outcomes. These insights shed light on the mechanisms of resilience, highlighting that it involves a constellation of neuropsychological processes crucial for adapting to external stimuli.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11642607/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41954041",
    "title": "Investigating Emotional Reactivity in Experienced Users of Psychedelics: A Cross-Sectional fMRI Study.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2026",
    "authors": [
      "P Orłowski",
      "A Domagalik",
      "M Bola"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuropharm.2017.12.041",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3815955",
    "abstract": "Classic psychedelics profoundly alter emotional states, inducing intense acute experiences lasting hours, followed by subtler, longer-lasting changes in emotional reactivity that can persist for weeks. While experimental and clinical studies document these prolonged effects, the highly context-dependent nature of psychedelic experiences leaves open the question of whether naturalistic, nonclinical use similarly modulates emotional processing. To investigate this, we conducted a preregistered, cross-sectional fMRI study comparing experienced psychedelic users (≥ 10 lifetime uses; N = 33) with closely matched nonusers (N = 34). Participants performed an emotional face recognition task, and we examined behavioral performance and neural responses to angry, happy, and fearful facial expressions. Behavioral results revealed that psychedelic users recognized angry expressions more quickly and accurately, indicating enhanced processing efficiency for threat-related stimuli. Consistent with this, whole-brain fMRI analyses showed reduced activation to anger in key limbic and salience network regions. Psychedelic users also exhibited heightened responses to happy expressions in parietal and sensorimotor cortices-aligning with prior clinical observations-as well as increased precuneus activation to fearful expressions. Region-of-interest analyses further demonstrated reduced differentiation between emotional categories in two default mode network nodes: the frontal medial cortex and parahippocampal gyrus. These findings provide a nuanced characterization of neurofunctional changes in emotional processing linked to repeated naturalistic psychedelic use. By bridging clinical and real-world contexts, this work deepens our understanding of the potential long-term consequences of psychedelics and complements existing evidence from controlled therapeutic settings.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3815955/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41635619",
    "title": "Context modulates brain state dynamics and behavioral responses during narrative comprehension.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2026",
    "authors": [
      "Y Chen",
      "Z Zada",
      "SA Nastase"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1037/0033-2909.123.2.162",
    "pmc_id": "PMC12224434",
    "abstract": "Narrative comprehension is inherently context-sensitive, yet the brain and cognitive mechanisms by which brief contextual priming shapes story interpretation remain unclear. Using hidden Markov modeling (HMM) of fMRI data, we identified dynamic brain states as participants listened to an ambiguous spoken story under two distinct narrative contexts (affair vs. paranoia). We identified recurrent states involving auditory, language, and default mode network (DMN) regions that were expressed across both groups, as well as additional states characterized by recruitment of multiple-demand network (MDN) systems, including control, dorsal attention, and salience networks. Bayesian mixed-effects modeling revealed that contextual framing modulated how specific linguistic and character-related features influenced the probability of occupying these states. Complementary behavioral data showed parallel context-sensitive modulation of participants' moment-to-moment interpretive judgments. Together, these findings suggest that contextual priming influences narrative comprehension through subtle, feature-dependent adjustments in the engagement of DMN- and MDN-related brain states during naturalistic story listening.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12224434/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41680159",
    "title": "Geometry of neural dynamics along the cortical attractor landscape reflects changes in attention.",
    "journal": "Nature communications",
    "year": "2026",
    "authors": [
      "H Song",
      "R Chen",
      "TL Botch"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuron.2018.07.003",
    "pmc_id": "PMC13009207",
    "abstract": "Large-scale brain activity reflects changes in attention. To understand how, we tested a hypothesis that the geometry of neural dynamics on the cortical attractor landscape, or movement along its \"hills and valleys\", reflects attentional states. A dynamical systems model separating intrinsic dynamics from stimulus-driven influences was fit to fMRI data collected during rest, tasks, and movie-watching. Model simulations revealed a set of attractors aligned with canonical functional brain networks. The speed and direction of neural trajectories toward these attractors varied systematically with attentional states over time and across contexts. When participants were paying attention to effortful tasks, neural dynamics converged fast and directly toward a task-relevant attractor. In contrast, when participants were engaged in sitcom episodes, neural dynamics occupied a flatter region of the landscape, directed away from attractors. These findings demonstrate that while attractor locations are largely determined by cortical organization, the geometry of neural dynamics changes systematically across attentional states and contexts.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13009207/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41485418",
    "title": "Measuring brain sensitivity to semantic distance in spoken narrative comprehension.",
    "journal": "Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior",
    "year": "2026",
    "authors": [
      "H Mechtenberg",
      "J Reilly",
      "JE Peelle"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1121/1.2935783",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3174820",
    "abstract": "Discourse comprehension requires simultaneous integration of local and global constituents. When hearing a narrative, for example, listeners must link the meaning of each incoming word to the preceding word (local context) while also assimilating its meaning into the broader gist of a story (global context). Thus, the brain simultaneously constructs meaning at different time scales and with different levels of granularity. Our understanding of the brain's division of labor in processing local versus global semantic distance relationships is limited. In this study we ask specifically how the semantic distance between a word and its prior context drives activity in the brain during naturalistic listening. We used fMRI data collected while participants (n = 79) listened to a podcast interview. Using a novel method for estimating semantic distance between a word and prior contexts computed at multiple grain sizes, we conducted an amplitude-modulated regression to identify brain regions that were sensitive to semantic distance. Results show that semantic distance drives activation in a broad frontotemporal network including the left and right superior and middle temporal gyrus and left inferior frontal gyrus, as well as the bilateral cerebellum. The right anterior superior temporal gyrus was particularly sensitive to the increase in context window size, consistent with a right hemisphere specialization for gist processing and for the anterior temporal lobes' purported role in semantic integration. This study demonstrates a promising method for investigating neural sensitivity to semantic movement in naturalistic language.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3174820/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39467639",
    "title": "Early Neural Development of Social Interaction Perception: Evidence from Voxel-Wise Encoding in Young Children and Adults.",
    "journal": "The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "EJ Im",
      "A Shirahatti",
      "L Isik"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1717-16.2016",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6596756",
    "abstract": "From a young age, children have advanced social perceptual and reasoning abilities. However, the neural development of these abilities is still poorly understood. To address this gap, we used fMRI data collected while 122 3-12-year-old children (64 females) and 33 adults (20 females) watched an engaging and socially rich movie to investigate how the cortical basis of social processing changes throughout development. We labeled the movie with visual and social features, including motion energy, presence of a face and a social interaction, theory of mind (ToM) events, valence, and arousal. Using a voxel-wise encoding model trained on these features, we found that models based on visual (motion energy) and social (faces, social interaction, ToM, valence, and arousal) features can both predict brain activity in children as young as 3 years old across the cortex, with particularly high predictivity in motion-selective middle temporal region and the superior temporal sulcus (STS). Furthermore, models based on individual social features showed that while there may be some development throughout childhood, social interaction information in the STS is present in children as young as 3 years old and appears adult-like by age 7. The current study, for the first time, links neural activity in children to predefined social features in a narrative movie and suggests social interaction perception is supported by early developing neural responses in the STS.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6596756/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41142951",
    "title": "Characterizing dynamic functional connectivity subnetwork contributions in narrative classification with Shapley values.",
    "journal": "Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "A Rossi",
      "Y Aeschlimann",
      "E Natale"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.12.013",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4107817",
    "abstract": "Functional connectivity derived from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data has been increasingly used to study brain activity. In this study, we model brain dynamic functional connectivity during narrative tasks as a temporal brain network and employ a machine learning model to classify in a supervised setting the modality (audio, movie), the content (airport, restaurant situations) of narratives, and both combined. Leveraging Shapley values, we analyze subnetwork contributions within Yeo parcellations (7- and 17-subnetworks) to explore their involvement in narrative modality and comprehension. This work represents the first application of this approach to functional aspects of the brain, validated by existing literature, and provides novel insights at the whole-brain level. Our findings suggest that schematic representations in narratives may not depend solely on preexisting knowledge of the top-down process to guide perception and understanding, but may also emerge from a bottom-up process driven by the temporal parietal subnetwork. This study investigates how different brain subnetworks contribute to processing narratives. We used a machine learning model to analyze fMRI data from participants listening to or watching narratives that varied in modality (audio or movie) and thematic content (airport or restaurant). Our model accurately classified these different narrative aspects, and by using Shapley values, we identified the subnetworks most crucial for each classification. Consistent with existing neuroscience knowledge, our findings highlight the distinct roles of these subnetworks in narrative comprehension. This study provides a powerful approach for investigating brain function across various domains.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4107817/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40386868",
    "title": "Neural state changes during movie watching relate to episodic memory in younger and older adults.",
    "journal": "Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "SE Henderson",
      "D Oetringer",
      "L Geerligs"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1037/0278-7393.22.5.1196",
    "pmc_id": "PMC8966433",
    "abstract": "Event segmentation is a key feature underlying the ability to remember real-life occurrences. At the neural level, event boundaries have been shown to align with boundaries between neural states-stable patterns of brain activity maintained over time. These neural states provide a valuable window into the neural underpinnings of event perception. To investigate how neural state boundaries relate to memory across the lifespan, we used the data-driven Greedy State Boundary Search method to implicitly identify neural state changes in younger and older adults' electroencephalography data during movie watching. Memory for the movie was tested and related to (1) neural state correspondence across individuals and (2) the degree to which the pattern of activity changes at boundaries. Neural state boundaries significantly aligned across people, but did not differ with age nor relate to memory. The degree of change at neural state boundaries also did not differ with age, but was positively related to memory for the movie. These findings suggest that age differences in the perception of naturalistic events may be less pronounced than previously thought, at least when measured implicitly, and that greater distinction between successive neural states relates to better memory for one's experiences regardless of age.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8966433/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39896129",
    "title": "No effect of apolipoprotein E polymorphism on MRI brain activity during movie watching.",
    "journal": "Brain and neuroscience advances",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "PP Raykov",
      "J Daly",
      "SE Fisher"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1101/2023.04.18.23288690",
    "pmc_id": "PMC2852534",
    "abstract": "Apolipoprotein E ε4 is a major genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, and some apolipoprotein E ε4 carriers show Alzheimer's disease-related neuropathology many years before cognitive changes are apparent. Therefore, studying healthy apolipoprotein E genotyped individuals offers an opportunity to investigate the earliest changes in brain measures that may signal the presence of disease-related processes. For example, subtle changes in functional magnetic resonance imaging functional connectivity, particularly within the default mode network, have been described when comparing healthy ε4 carriers to ε3 carriers. Similarly, very mild impairments of episodic memory have also been documented in healthy apolipoprotein E ε4 carriers. Here, we use a naturalistic activity (movie watching), and a marker of episodic memory encoding (transient changes in functional magnetic resonance imaging activity and functional connectivity around so-called 'event boundaries'), to investigate potential phenotype differences associated with the apolipoprotein E ε4 genotype in a large sample of healthy adults. Using Bayes factor analyses, we found strong evidence against existence of differences associated with apolipoprotein E allelic status. Similarly, we did not find apolipoprotein E-associated differences when we ran exploratory analyses examining: functional system segregation across the whole brain, and connectivity within the default mode network. We conclude that apolipoprotein E genotype has little or no effect on how ongoing experiences are processed in healthy adults. The mild phenotype differences observed in some studies may reflect early effects of Alzheimer's disease-related pathology in apolipoprotein E ε4 carriers.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2852534/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800968",
    "title": "Cerebral topographies of perceived and felt emotions.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "H Saarimäki",
      "L Nummenmaa",
      "S Volynets"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1177/1754073917749880",
    "pmc_id": "PMC7543934",
    "abstract": "Emotions modulate behavioral priorities based on exteroceptive and interoceptive inputs, and the related central and peripheral changes may be experienced subjectively. Yet, it remains unresolved whether the perceptual and subjectively felt components of the emotion processes rely on shared brain mechanisms. We applied functional magnetic resonance imaging, a rich set of emotional movies, and high-dimensional, continuous ratings of perceived and felt emotions in the movies to investigate their cerebral organization. Emotions evoked during natural movie scene perception were represented in the brain across numerous spatial scales and patterns. Perceived and felt emotions generalized both between individuals and between different stimuli depicting the same emotions. The neural affective space demonstrated an anatomical gradient from emotion-general responses in polysensory areas and default mode regions to more emotion-specific discrete processing in subcortical regions. Differences in brain activation during felt and perceived emotions suggest that temporoparietal areas and precuneus have a key role in evaluating the affective value of the sensory input, and subjective emotional state generation is associated with further and significantly stronger recruitment of the temporoparietal junction, anterior prefrontal cortices, cerebellum, and thalamus. These data reveal the similarities and differences of domain-general and emotion-specific affect networks in the brain during a wide range of perceived and felt emotions.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7543934/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39809735",
    "title": "Coordinated representations for naturalistic memory encoding and retrieval in hippocampal neural subspaces.",
    "journal": "Nature communications",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "D Kwon",
      "J Kim",
      "SBM Yoo"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1038/s41597-020-00735-4",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4961028",
    "abstract": "Our naturalistic experiences are organized into memories through multiple processes, including novelty encoding, memory formation, and retrieval. However, the neural mechanisms coordinating these processes remain elusive. Using fMRI data acquired during movie viewing and subsequent narrative recall, we examine hippocampal neural subspaces associated with distinct memory processes and characterized their relationships. We quantify novelty in character co-occurrences and the valence of relationships and estimate event memorability. Within the hippocampus, the novelty subspaces encoding each type exhibit partial overlap, and these overlapping novelty subspaces align with the subspace involved in memorability. Notably, following event boundaries, hippocampal states within these subspaces align inversely along a shared coding axis, predicting subsequent recall performance. This novelty-memorability alignment is selectively observed during encoding but not during retrieval. Finally, the identified functional subspaces reflect the intrinsic functional organization of the hippocampus. Our findings offer insights into how the hippocampus dynamically coordinates representations underlying memory encoding and retrieval at the population level to transform ongoing experiences into enduring memories.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4961028/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41137740",
    "title": "From Speech Semantics to Brain Activity-Timescales Are Key in Their Information Transfer.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "S Kumar",
      "P Klar",
      "Y Çatal"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117579",
    "pmc_id": "PMC10070246",
    "abstract": "Fluctuating timescales are present in nature and are commonly observed in music, movies, brain activity, and speech. In human speech, semantic timescales span from single words to complete sentences and vary throughout conversation. Similarly, the brain's intrinsic neuronal timescales (INT), reflected in temporally correlated activity, carry information across time. How are these semantic and neuronal timescales related? Our combined semantic input and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study using the 7 Tesla Human Connectome Project movie-watching dataset reveals information transfer from speech's semantic timescales to the brain's INT. We extracted two semantic time-series, sentence similarity and word depth, using Sentence-BERT (SBERT) and WordNet, respectively. The timescales of both semantic signals and the brain's activity were quantified using the autocorrelation window (ACW), with a dynamic, time-varying analysis approach. This allows testing for information transfer from the simultaneously varying semantic timescales to the brain's varying timescales via Transfer Entropy (TE). We report three main findings: (1) Sentence similarity and word depth time-series exhibit high and systematic fluctuations over time. (2) Dynamic ACW analysis captures the dominant timescales in both semantic input (sentence similarity and word depth) and the brain's continuously varying INT. (3) Significant TE from the varying semantic timescales to the brain's simultaneously varying INT. We also demonstrate that the information transfer only emerges on the level of timescales, and is absent when comparing the two raw semantic input time-series with the BOLD signal, respectively. Conclusively, we demonstrate the key role of timescales in the information transfer from semantic inputs to the brain's neural activity.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10070246/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40481037",
    "title": "Functional recruitment and connectivity of the cerebellum is associated with the emergence of Theory of Mind in early childhood.",
    "journal": "Nature communications",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "A Manoli",
      "F Van Overwalle",
      "C Grosse Wiesmann"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1038/srep06240",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4150124",
    "abstract": "There is accumulating evidence that the human cerebellum is heavily implicated in adult social cognition. Yet, its involvement in the development of Theory of Mind (ToM), a hallmark of social cognition, remains elusive. Using openly available functional MRI data of children with emerging ToM abilities (N = 41, age range: 3-12 years) and adults (N = 78), we show that children who pass a false-belief assessment of ToM abilities activate cerebellar Crus I-II in response to ToM events during a movie-watching task, similar to adults. This activation is not statistically significant in children who do not pass the ToM assessment. Functional connectivity profiles between cerebellar and cerebral ToM regions differ as a function of children's ToM abilities. Notably, task-driven connectivity shifts from upstream to downstream connections between cerebellar and cerebral ToM regions from childhood to adulthood. Greater dependence on connections emerging from the cerebellum early in life suggests an important role of the cerebellum in establishing the cognitive processes underlying ToM in childhood and thus for the undisrupted development of social cognition.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4150124/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800935",
    "title": "The neural basis of event segmentation: Stable features in the environment are reflected by neural states.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "D Oetringer",
      "D Gözükara",
      "U Güçlü"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1111/j.1467-9280.1995.tb00513.x",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6057550",
    "abstract": "Our senses receive a continuous stream of complex information. Parsing this information into meaningful events allows us to extract relevant information, remember it, and act upon it. Previous research has related these events to so-called neural states: temporally and regionally specific stable patterns of brain activity, which tend to coincide with events in the stimulus. Neural states show a temporal cortical hierarchy: short states are present in early sensory areas, while longer states can be found in higher-level areas. Here we investigated what these neural states represent. We hypothesized that states at different levels of the cortical hierarchy are shaped by aspects of the stimulus to which these brain areas are responsive. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed fMRI data of participants watching a movie, using a data-driven method to identify the neural states. We found support for the aforementioned hypothesis: specifically the parahippocampal place area and retrosplenial cortex, known to be sensitive to places, showed an alignment between neural state boundaries and moments in the movie with a change in location, independent of changes in visual features and other covariates. These findings suggest that neural states reflect stable features in the (internal model of) the external environment, and that the cortical temporal hierarchy partly reflects the temporal scales at which representations of the environment evolve.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6057550/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41105838",
    "title": "Temporal propagation of neural state boundaries in naturalistic context.",
    "journal": "Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "D Oetringer",
      "S Henderson",
      "D Gözükara"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1111/j.1467-9280.1995.tb00513.x",
    "pmc_id": "PMC8145286",
    "abstract": "Our senses receive a continuous stream of complex information, which we segment into discrete events. Previous research has related such events to neural states: temporally and regionally specific stable patterns of brain activity. The aim of this paper was to investigate whether there was evidence for top-down or bottom-up propagation of neural state boundaries. To do so, we used intracranial measurements with high temporal resolution while subjects were watching a movie. As this is the first study of neural states in intracranial data in the context of event segmentation, we also investigated whether known properties of neural states could be replicated. The neural state boundaries indeed aligned with stimulus features and between brain areas. Importantly, we found evidence for top-down propagation of neural state boundaries at the onsets and offsets of clauses. Interestingly, we did not observe a consistent top-down or bottom-up propagation in general across all timepoints, suggesting that neural state boundaries could propagate in both a top-down and bottom-up manner, with the direction depending on the stimulus input at that moment. Taken together, our findings provide new insights on how neural state boundaries are shared across brain regions and strengthen the foundation of studying neural states in electrophysiology.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8145286/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39878229",
    "title": "Pattern Separation and Pattern Completion Within the Hippocampal Circuit During Naturalistic Stimuli.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "L Sun",
      "S Li",
      "P Ren"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/hbm.70150",
    "pmc_id": "PMC2852534",
    "abstract": "Pattern separation and pattern completion in the hippocampus play a critical role in episodic learning and memory. However, there is limited empirical evidence supporting the role of the hippocampal circuit in these processes during complex continuous experiences. In this study, we analyzed high-resolution fMRI data from the \"Forrest Gump\" open-access dataset (16 participants) using a sliding-window temporal autocorrelation approach to investigate whether the canonical hippocampal circuit (DG-CA3-CA1-SUB) shows evidence consistent with the occurrence of pattern separation or pattern completion during a naturalistic audio movie task. Our results revealed that when processing continuous naturalistic stimuli, the DG-CA3 pair exhibited evidence consistent with the occurrence of the pattern separation process, whereas both the CA3-CA1 and CA1-SUB pairs showed evidence consistent with pattern completion. Moreover, during the latter half of the audio movie, we observed evidence consistent with a reduction in pattern completion in the CA3-CA1 pair and an increase in pattern completion in the CA1-SUB pair. Overall, these findings improve our understanding of the evidence related to the occurrence of pattern separation and pattern completion processes during natural experiences.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2852534/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800800",
    "title": "Structure-function coupling and decoupling during movie watching and resting state: Novel insights bridging EEG and structural imaging.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "V Subramani",
      "G Lioi",
      "K Jerbi"
    ],
    "doi": "10.3389/fncom.2022.919215",
    "pmc_id": "PMC9301328",
    "abstract": "The intricate structural and functional architecture of the brain enables a wide range of cognitive processes ranging from perception and action to higher order abstract thinking. Despite important progress, the relationship between the brain's structural and functional properties is not yet fully established. In particular, the way the brain's anatomy shapes its electrophysiological dynamics remains elusive. The electroencephalography (EEG) activity recorded during naturalistic tasks is thought to exhibit patterns of coupling with the underlying brain structure that vary as a function of behavior. Yet these patterns have not yet been sufficiently quantified. We address this gap by jointly examining individual Diffusion-Weighted Imaging (DWI) scans and continuous EEG recorded during video watching and resting state, using a Graph Signal Processing (GSP) framework. By decomposing the structural graph into eigenmodes and expressing the EEG activity as an extension of anatomy, GSP provides a way to quantify the structure-function coupling. We elucidate how the structure shapes function during naturalistic tasks such as movie watching and how this association is modulated by tasks. We quantify the coupling relationship in a region-, time-, and frequency-resolved manner. First of all, our findings indicate that the EEG activity in the sensorimotor cortex is strongly coupled with brain structure, while the activity in higher order systems is less constrained by anatomy, that is, shows more flexibility. In addition, we found that watching videos was associated with stronger structure-function coupling in the sensorimotor cortex, as compared with resting-state data. Second, time-resolved analysis revealed that the unimodal systems undergo minimal temporal fluctuation in structure-function association, and the transmodal system displays the highest temporal fluctuations, with the exception of PCC seeing low fluctuations. Lastly, our frequency-resolved analysis revealed a consistent topography across different EEG rhythms, suggesting a similar relationship with the anatomical structure across frequency bands. Together, this unprecedented characterization of the link between structure and function using continuous EEG during naturalistic behavior underscores the role of anatomy in shaping ongoing cognitive processes. Taken together, by combining the temporal and spectral resolution of EEG and the methodological advantages of GSP, our work sheds new light on the anatomo-functional organization of the brain.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9301328/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40472031",
    "title": "Shared disbelief and shared belief: Belief and disbelief as drivers of interpersonal neural synchronization during narrative processing.",
    "journal": "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "G Braun",
      "Y Yeshurun",
      "E Shetreet"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neubiorev.2013.06.002",
    "pmc_id": "PMC7959490",
    "abstract": "Despite living in an era where the mere concept of truth is increasingly contested, the cognitive processes underlying the processing of information we believe or disbelieve remain largely unexplored. In this fMRI study, we investigated how belief modulates narrative processing through belief context-the initial information indicating the speaker's credibility-and actual belief-the truth value ultimately assigned by the listener. Across two experiments, participants listened to narratives preceded by contexts explicitly stating whether the speaker was lying or telling the truth. Then, after listening to the narratives, they were asked to rate their actual belief. To investigate the effects of (dis)belief on narrative processing, we analyzed neural synchronization using inter-subject-correlation analysis and inter-subject representational similarity analysis. In both experiments, we successfully differentiated (dis)belief contexts by modeling neural synchronization patterns, despite an actual \"belief-bias\" at the behavioral level. This indicates a unique neural pattern related to each belief context. Furthermore, our results revealed a dissociation between belief and disbelief in both contextual and actual (dis)belief. Per each narrative, belief and disbelief were associated with increased synchrony within the default mode network, but in distinguishable parcels. These findings highlight the influence of (dis)belief on narrative processing at both behavioral and neural levels. Behaviorally, the observed belief-bias supports the notion of belief as a cognitive default. Neurally, we suggest that belief and disbelief can be understood as fostering qualitatively distinct processing or interpretation of the same narrative, which are then reflected in shared neural responses among individuals who hold similar belief states.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7959490/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40924465",
    "title": "Brain activation for language and its relationship to cognitive and linguistic measures.",
    "journal": "Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "I Balboni",
      "A Rampinini",
      "O Kepinska"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuron.2012.03.004",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3361461",
    "abstract": "Language learning and use relies on domain-specific, domain-general cognitive and sensory-motor functions. Using fMRI during story listening and behavioral tests, we investigated brain-behavior associations between linguistic and non-linguistic measures in individuals with varied multilingual experience and reading skills, including typical reading participants (TRs) and dyslexic readers (DRs). Partial Least Square Correlation revealed a main component linking cognitive, linguistic, and phonological measures to amodal/associative brain areas. A second analysis only in TRs revealed a stronger association between cognitive, linguistic, literacy and phonological skills within the same brain network as in the full sample, suggesting better speech-print convergence in TRs. In this sample, an additional component involving speed, automatization, and lexical access was associated with less involvement in unimodal, lower-level auditory, and motor brain areas. The complementarity between the two components likely reflects TRs' reduced reliance on lower-level sensorimotor regions and greater engagement of higher-level cortices and skills. Overall, our work suggests convergence between behavioral measures of linguistic, domain-general cognitive and domain-specific non-linguistic skill, and between these behavioral measures and neural processing of language. This convergence is greater in TRs, suggesting more integrated processing in this group. Our work advocates a comprehensive, multimodal approach to understanding individual differences in language abilities and experience.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3361461/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40886590",
    "title": "Advanced neuroimaging techniques to decipher brain connectivity networks in patients with disorder of consciousness: a narrative review.",
    "journal": "NeuroImage. Clinical",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "S Zhu",
      "T Cao",
      "Q He"
    ],
    "doi": "10.3389/fnsys.2019.00008",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6399132",
    "abstract": "Advanced neuroimaging techniques have revolutionized our ability to decode brain networks in patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC), offering unprecedented insights into the structural and functional underpinnings of consciousness impairment. This review systematically examines and summarizes the clinical applications of modern neuroimaging methodologies-specifically functional MRI and diffusion MRI- for DoC patients from three key perspectives: (1) pathogenic mechanism and theory evolution, (2) accurate diagnosis and prognosis assessment, and (3) treatment strategy and efficacy evaluation. By integrating network neuroscience with clinical insights, we highlight the transformative role of neuroimaging in unraveling network-level damage, refining clinical assessments, and guiding therapeutic innovations. We further outline the potential applicational challenges associated with leveraging neuroimaging techniques to advance both scientific research on consciousness networks and clinical practice in DoC management, hoping to better address these complex conditions.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6399132/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40155709",
    "title": "Neural dynamics of semantic control underlying generative storytelling.",
    "journal": "Communications biology",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "C Rastelli",
      "A Greco",
      "C Finocchiaro"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1038/s42003-025-07913-3",
    "pmc_id": "PMC11484927",
    "abstract": "Storytelling has been pivotal for the transmission of knowledge across human history, yet the role of semantic control and its associated neural dynamics has been poorly investigated. Here, human participants generated stories that were either appropriate (ordinary), novel (random), or balanced (creative), while recording functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Deep language models confirmed participants adherence to task instructions. At the neural level, linguistic and visual areas exhibited neural synchrony across participants regardless of the semantic control level, with parietal and frontal regions being more synchronized during random ideation. Importantly, creative stories were differentiated by a multivariate pattern of neural activity in frontal and fronto-temporo-parietal cortices compared to ordinary and random stories. Crucially, similar brain regions were also encoding the features that distinguished the stories. Moreover, we found specific spatial frequency patterns underlying the modulation of semantic control during story generation, while functional coupling in default, salience, and control networks differentiated creative stories with their controls. Remarkably, the temporal irreversibility between visual and high-level areas was higher during creative ideation, suggesting the enhanced hierarchical structure of causal interactions as a neural signature of creative storytelling. Together, our findings highlight the neural mechanisms underlying the regulation of semantic exploration during narrative ideation.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11484927/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800764",
    "title": "The Voxelwise Encoding Model framework: A tutorial introduction to fitting encoding models to fMRI data.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "T Dupré la Tour",
      "M Visconti di Oleggio Castello",
      "JL Gallant"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1177/1745691617693393",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6603289",
    "abstract": "The Voxelwise Encoding Model framework (VEM) is a powerful approach for functional brain mapping. In the VEM framework, features are extracted from the stimulus (or task) and used in an encoding model to predict brain activity. If the encoding model is able to predict brain activity in some part of the brain, then one may conclude that some information represented in the features is also encoded in the brain. In VEM, a separate encoding model is fitted on each spatial sample (i.e., each voxel). VEM has many benefits compared to other methods for analyzing and modeling neuroimaging data. Most importantly, VEM can use large numbers of features simultaneously, which enables the analysis of complex naturalistic stimuli and tasks. Therefore, VEM can produce high-dimensional functional maps that reflect the selectivity of each voxel to large numbers of features. Moreover, because model performance is estimated on a separate test dataset not used during fitting, VEM minimizes overfitting and inflated Type I error confounds that plague other approaches, and the results of VEM generalize to new subjects and new stimuli. Despite these benefits, VEM is still not widely used in neuroimaging, partly because no tutorials on this method are available currently. To demystify the VEM framework and ease its dissemination, this paper presents a series of hands-on tutorials accessible to novice practitioners. The VEM tutorials are based on free open-source tools and public datasets, and reproduce the analysis presented in previously published work.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6603289/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40659530",
    "title": "Neural Synchrony and Consumer Behavior: Predicting Friends' Behavior in Real-World Social Networks.",
    "journal": "The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "Y Hu",
      "B Ma",
      "J Jin"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.elerap.2022.101219",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3288461",
    "abstract": "The endogenous aspect of social influence, reflected in the spontaneous alignment of behaviors within close social relationships, plays a crucial role in understanding human social behavior. In two studies involving 222 human subjects (Study 1: n = 175, 106 females; Study 2: n = 47, 33 females), we used a longitudinal behavioral study and a naturalistic stimuli neuroimaging study to investigate the endogenous consumer behavior similarities and their neural basis in real-world social networks. The findings reveal that friends, compared with nonfriends, exhibit higher similarity in product evaluation, which undergoes dynamic changes as the structure of social networks changes. Both neuroimaging and meta-analytic decoding results indicate that friends exhibit heightened neural synchrony, which is linked to cognitive functions such as object perception, attention, memory, social judgment, and reward processing. Stacking machine learning-based predictive models demonstrate that the functional connectivity maps of brain activity can predict the purchase intention of their friends or their own rather than strangers. Based on the significant neural similarity which exists among individuals in close relationships within authentic social networks, the current study reveals the predictive capacity of neural activity in predicting the behavior of friends.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3288461/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39960115",
    "title": "Stimulus Selection Influences Prediction of Individual Phenotypes in Naturalistic Conditions.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "X Li",
      "SB Eickhoff",
      "S Weis"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/hbm.23950",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6866578",
    "abstract": "While the use of naturalistic stimuli such as movie clips for understanding individual differences and brain-behaviour relationships attracts increasing interest, the influence of stimulus selection remains largely unclear. By using machine learning to predict individual traits (phenotypes) from brain activity evoked during various movie clips, we show that different movie stimuli can result in distinct prediction performances. In brain regions related to lower-level processing of the stimulus, prediction to a certain degree benefits from stronger synchronisation of brain activity across subjects. By contrast, better predictions in frontoparietal brain regions are mainly associated with larger inter-subject variability. Furthermore, we demonstrate that while movie clips with rich social content in general achieve better predictions, the importance of specific movie features for prediction highly depends on the phenotype under investigation. Overall, our findings underscore the importance of careful stimulus selection and provide novel insights into stimulus selection for phenotype prediction in naturalistic conditions, opening new avenues for future research.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6866578/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41026824",
    "title": "Mapping macaque to human cortex with natural scene responses.",
    "journal": "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "K Vinken",
      "S Sharma",
      "MS Livingstone"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1073/pnas.2512619122",
    "pmc_id": "PMC5495573",
    "abstract": "Neuroscience has long relied on macaque studies to infer human brain function, yet identifying functionally corresponding brain regions across species and measurement modalities remains a fundamental challenge. This is especially true for the higher-order cortex, where functional interpretations are constrained by narrow hypotheses and anatomical landmarks are often nonhomologous. We present a data-driven approach for mapping functional correspondence across species using rich, naturalistic stimuli. By directly comparing macaque electrophysiology with human fMRI responses to 700 natural scenes, we identify fine-grained alignment based on response pattern similarity, without relying on predefined tuning concepts or hand-picked stimuli. As a test case, we examine the ventral face patch system, a well-studied but contested domain in cross-species alignment. Our approach resolves a long-standing ambiguity by supporting a correspondence between macaque ML and human FFA and between AL and more anterior temporal cortex in humans. This result is consistent with full-brain anatomical warping but inconsistent with prior studies limited by narrow functional hypotheses. These findings show that natural image-evoked response patterns provide a robust foundation for cross-species functional alignment, supporting scalable comparisons as large-scale primate recordings become more widespread.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5495573/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800842",
    "title": "Similar trajectories of psychological states predict marital satisfaction.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "L Li",
      "X Huang",
      "Q Zheng"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/hbm.24059",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6866636",
    "abstract": "Modern mate selection theories suggest that people are more likely to marrysomeone similar to themselves in terms of numerous attributes. Recent researchhas demonstrated a positive relationship between marital satisfaction andinter-subject correlation (ISC) of neural responses while viewing movies inmarried couples. Nevertheless, conventional ISC methods solely captureinformation about similarity in the temporal evolution of region-averaged neuralresponses, disregarding nuanced spatially distributed response topographies.Here, we integrated ISC and multi-voxel pattern (MVP) analysis to capitalizeinter-subject trajectory similarity (ISTS) of MVP. We demonstrated that marriedcouples showed significantly higher ISTS than randomly selected pairs, duringmovie viewing and resting state. The ISTS was particularly positively associatedwith marital satisfaction in married couples while viewing movies. In order toinvestigate latent \"psychological states\" characterized byrelatively stable patterns of MVP, a hidden Markov model was used to segment theneural events in married couples during viewing movies. We found the ISTS withinmanually defined events was a strong predictor of marital satisfaction. Theseresults suggest that married couples with high-level marital satisfaction mayexperience similar trajectories of mental states when exposed to a commonmarital-related stimulus, and extend our understanding of the neurobiologicalsignatures of intimate relationship.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6866636/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39530592",
    "title": "Shared orbitofrontal dynamics to a drug-themed movie track craving and recovery in heroin addiction.",
    "journal": "Brain : a journal of neurology",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "G Kronberg",
      "AO Ceceli",
      "Y Huang"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/brain/awae369",
    "pmc_id": "PMC7536385",
    "abstract": "Movies captivate groups of individuals (the audience), especially if they contain themes of common motivational interest to the group. In drug addiction, a key mechanism is maladaptive motivational salience attribution whereby drug cues outcompete other reinforcers within the same environment or context. We predicted that while watching a drug-themed movie, where cues for drugs and other stimuli share a continuous narrative context, functional MRI responses in individuals with heroin use disorder (iHUD) will preferentially synchronize during drug scenes. Thirty inpatient iHUD (24 male) and 25 healthy controls (16 male) watched a drug-themed movie at baseline and at follow-up after 15 weeks. Results revealed such drug-biased synchronization in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), ventromedial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and insula. After 15 weeks during ongoing inpatient treatment, there was a significant reduction in this drug-biased shared response in the OFC, which correlated with a concomitant reduction in dynamically-measured craving, suggesting synchronized OFC responses to a drug-themed movie as a neural marker of craving and recovery in iHUD.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7536385/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41115795",
    "title": "Hippocampal-Cortical Networks Predict Conceptual versus Perceptually Guided Narrative Memory.",
    "journal": "The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "C Ferris",
      "R Scheurich",
      "C Palmer"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1109/42.906424",
    "pmc_id": "PMC7233541",
    "abstract": "Current theories of event memory propose distinct connections between the hippocampus and neocortical regions, particularly those within the default mode network (DMN) subsystems, to support processing different types of content in memory. It has been established that hippocampal connectivity supports integrating this disparate content into unified event memories, suggesting that changing the way that an event is described could change the underlying hippocampal neural network. To address this knowledge gap, we developed event narratives that described the same core story (e.g., grocery shopping) with identical central story details described with additional descriptive details that were conceptually or perceptually related to the story. Using fMRI, we established hippocampal connectivity patterns as a group of human participants (N = 35, of any sex) encoded these narratives and then related these patterns to later memory for the narrative details. Consistent with prior work, we found that the conceptual narratives were associated with stronger anterior hippocampal connectivity to regions within the core and dorsomedial DMN subsystems, and a portion of this connectivity pattern predicted memory for the core story of the narrative. The perceptual narratives were selectively associated with anterior hippocampal connectivity to parietal and lateral temporal regions and regions outside the standard DMN, in relation to memory performance. These results provide new insights into hippocampal and DMN functional organization and how distinct neural components contribute differently to event memory.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7233541/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800749",
    "title": "Comparing reliability-based measures of functional connectivity between movie and rest: An ROI-based approach.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "H Shearer",
      "J Eilbott",
      "F Vila-Rodriguez"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.05.009",
    "pmc_id": "PMC2955413",
    "abstract": "Functional connectivity (FC) has shown promising utility in the field of precision psychiatry. However, to translate from research to clinical use, FC reliability and sensitivity to individual differences still require improvement. Movie watching as an acquisition state offers advantages at the whole-brain level that align with the requirements of FC for individualized measures. However, it is unclear whether these advantages hold in specific brain regions important for precision psychiatry. Here, we compared univariate and multivariate reliability-based measures of movie-watching and resting-state FC data in three psychiatrically relevant brain regions. We found that the reliability of movie-watching FC was comparable with resting-state FC in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and presupplementary motor area, and movie-watching FC was more discriminable than resting-state FC in the temporoparietal junction. Rest had higher reliabilities at lower data amounts (e.g., under 5 minutes of scan time). We then expanded this approach to all brain regions and showed that for image intraclass correlation coefficients (I2C2), no parcels were significantly different between movie and rest. For discriminability, 25% (94/379) of parcels were better for movie than for rest, and zero parcels were better for rest. For fingerprinting, 59 parcels were better for movie (mainly in visual and temporal regions, mean improvement in accuracy = 23%) and 4 parcels were better for rest. For researchers interested in cross-state differences in FC reliability, we provide an interactive visualization tool that displays the results for all measures and for all regions in both movie and rest. These findings suggest that movie watching as an acquisition state-even when using different movies across scans-may provide a useful alternative to resting state in research studies that require optimization of FC discriminability.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2955413/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800829",
    "title": "Revealing the co-existence of written and spoken language coding neural populations in the visual word form area.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "S Wang",
      "AS Dubarry",
      "V Chanoine"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1126/sciadv.adf6140",
    "pmc_id": "PMC10075963",
    "abstract": "Reading relies on the ability to map written symbols with speech sounds. A specific part of the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex, known as the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA), plays a crucial role in this process. Through the automatization of the mapping ability, this area progressively becomes specialized in written word recognition. Yet, despite its key role in reading, the area also responds to speech. This observation raises questions about the actual nature of neural representations encoded in the VWFA and, therefore, the underlying mechanism of the cross-modal responses. Here, we addressed this issue by applying fine-grained analyses of within- and cross-modal repetition suppression effects (RSEs) and Multi-Voxel Pattern Analyses in fMRI and sEEG experiments. Convergent evidence across analysis methods and protocols showed significant RSEs and successful decoding in both within-modal visual and auditory conditions, suggesting that populations of neurons within the VWFA distinctively encode written and spoken language. This functional organization of neural populations enables the area to respond to both written and spoken inputs. The finding opens further discussions on how the human brain may be prepared and adapted for an acquisition of a complex ability such as reading.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10075963/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41424246",
    "title": "Human EEG and artificial neural networks reveal disentangled representations and processing timelines of object real-world size and depth in natural images.",
    "journal": "eLife",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "Z Lu",
      "J Golomb"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1038/nn.4244",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4060707",
    "abstract": "Remarkably, human brains have the ability to accurately perceive and process the real-world size of objects, despite vast differences in distance and perspective. While previous studies have delved into this phenomenon, distinguishing the processing of real-world size from other visual properties, like depth, has been challenging. Using the THINGS EEG2 dataset with human EEG recordings and more ecologically valid naturalistic stimuli, our study combines human EEG and representational similarity analysis to disentangle neural representations of object real-world size from retinal size and perceived depth, leveraging recent datasets and modeling approaches to address challenges not fully resolved in previous work. We report a representational timeline of visual object processing: object real-world depth processed first, then retinal size, and finally, real-world size. Additionally, we input both these naturalistic images and object-only images without natural background into artificial neural networks. Consistent with the human EEG findings, we also successfully disentangled representation of object real-world size from retinal size and real-world depth in all three types of artificial neural networks (visual-only ResNet, visual-language CLIP, and language-only Word2Vec). Moreover, our multi-modal representational comparison framework across human EEG and artificial neural networks reveals real-world size as a stable and higher-level dimension in object space incorporating both visual and semantic information. Our research provides a temporally resolved characterization of how certain key object properties - such as object real-world size, depth, and retinal size - are represented in the brain, which offers further advances and insights into our understanding of object space and the construction of more brain-like visual models.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4060707/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800942",
    "title": "Hierarchical surprise signals in naturalistic violation of expectations.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "V Plikat",
      "PR Grassi",
      "J Frack"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1523/JNEUROSCI.23-22-08092.2003",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6740503",
    "abstract": "Surprise responses signal both high-level cognitive alerts that information is missing, and increasingly specific back-propagating error signals that allow updates in processing nodes. Studying surprise is, hence, central for cognitive neuroscience to understand internal world representations and learning. Yet, only few prior studies used naturalistic stimuli targeting our high-level understanding of the world. Here, we use magic tricks in an fMRI experiment to investigate neural responses to violations of core assumptions held by humans about the world. We showed participants naturalistic videos of three types of magic tricks, involving objects appearing, changing color, or disappearing, along with control videos without any violation of expectation. Importantly, the same videos were presented with and without prior knowledge about the tricks' explanation. Results revealed generic responses in frontal and parietal areas, together with responses specific to each of the three trick types in posterior sensory areas. A subset of these regions, the midline areas of the default mode network (DMN), showed surprise activity that depended on prior knowledge. Equally, sensory regions showed sensitivity to prior knowledge, reflected in differing decoding accuracies. These results suggest a hierarchy of surprise signals involving generic processing of violation of expectations in frontal and parietal areas with concurrent surprise signals in sensory regions that are specific to the processed features.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6740503/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39792001",
    "title": "Mapping patterns of thought onto brain activity during movie-watching.",
    "journal": "eLife",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "RS Wallace",
      "B Mckeown",
      "I Goodall-Halliwell"
    ],
    "doi": "10.7554/eLife.74011",
    "pmc_id": "PMC8937216",
    "abstract": "Movie-watching is a central aspect of our lives and an important paradigm for understanding the brain mechanisms behind cognition as it occurs in daily life. Contemporary views of ongoing thought argue that the ability to make sense of events in the 'here and now' depend on the neural processing of incoming sensory information by auditory and visual cortex, which are kept in check by systems in association cortex. However, we currently lack an understanding of how patterns of ongoing thoughts map onto the different brain systems when we watch a film, partly because methods of sampling experience disrupt the dynamics of brain activity and the experience of movie-watching. Our study established a novel method for mapping thought patterns onto the brain activity that occurs at different moments of a film, which does not disrupt the time course of brain activity or the movie-watching experience. We found moments when experience sampling highlighted engagement with multi-sensory features of the film or highlighted thoughts with episodic features, regions of sensory cortex were more active and subsequent memory for events in the movie was better-on the other hand, periods of intrusive distraction emerged when activity in regions of association cortex within the frontoparietal system was reduced. These results highlight the critical role sensory systems play in the multi-modal experience of movie-watching and provide evidence for the role of association cortex in reducing distraction when we watch films.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8937216/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800785",
    "title": "An embodied perspective: Angular gyrus and precuneus decode selfhood in memories of naturalistic events.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "HM Iriye",
      "PL St Jacques"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.brs.2017.02.011",
    "pmc_id": "PMC5434245",
    "abstract": "While we often assume that memory encoding occurs from an in-body (first-person) perspective, out-of-body experiences demonstrate that we can form memories from a third-person perspective. This phenomenon provides a distinctive opportunity to examine the interaction between embodiment and visual perspective during encoding, and how this interplay shapes the recall of past events. Participants formed memories for naturalistic events following a manipulation of their sense of embodiment from in-body and out-of-body perspectives and recalled them during functional scanning. Region of interest multivariate analyses examined how the angular gyrus, precuneus, and hippocampus reflected visual perspective, embodiment, and their interaction during remembering. Patterns of activity during retrieval in the left angular gyrus and bilateral precuneus predicted embodiment on its own separated from visual perspective. In contrast, we observed only inconclusive evidence that these posterior parietal regions predicted visual perspective independent of embodiment. While the left angular gyrus distinguished between in-body and out-of-body perspectives during the retrieval of events associated with both strong and weak embodiment, decoding accuracy predicting visual perspective was only above chance for events encoded with strong embodiment in the precuneus bilaterally. Our results suggest that the contribution of posterior parietal regions in establishing visual perspectives within memories is tightly interconnected with embodiment. Encoding events from an embodied in-body perspective compared with embodied out-of-body perspective led to higher memory accuracy following repeated retrieval. These results elucidate how fundamental feelings of being located in and experiencing the world from our own body's perspective are integrated within memory.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5434245/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40593277",
    "title": "Functional connectivity of sensory and executive function networks during a story listening task is related to parent/child interaction during joint reading: a functional MRI diffusion map study.",
    "journal": "Brain imaging and behavior",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "TH Kraus",
      "M Bebar",
      "A Jacobson"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1177/00131640021970466",
    "pmc_id": "PMC2763568",
    "abstract": "The quality of parent-child interaction during shared reading (\"shared reading quality\") is strongly linked to cognitive and relational benefits. However, the relationship between shared reading quality and activation and synchronization of reading-related brain networks has not yet been characterized. The current study involved 22 4-year-old girls who completed functional MRI including a validated stories listening task, and a primary parent. Prior to MRI, video observation of the parent and child reading together was conducted and later coded using a standardized scoring form quantifying parent-child verbal and nonverbal interaction. Behavioral measures included demographics and a maternal depression scale. To achieve this goal, fMRI stories-listening data was utilized to create a diffusion maps algorithm and then to classify the level of parent-child interaction during the shared reading observation. The algorithm clustered children with higher parent-child engagement scores with fMRI diffusion patterns in regions of the brain known to support reading. This study establishes proof-of-concept that applying this diffusion maps algorithm to brain functional connectivity data can reliably predict parent-child interaction during shared book reading. It also suggests that an algorithmic approach may be a novel, data-driven means to quantify parent-child interaction in different contexts (e.g., reading, play) and populations.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2763568/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41189416",
    "title": "Functional connectivity of semantic and default mode networks during narrative comprehension.",
    "journal": "Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "M Thye",
      "J Ding",
      "P Hoffman"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1037/0033-2909.123.2.162",
    "pmc_id": "PMC8653780",
    "abstract": "Understanding narratives requires at least transient access to the semantic system, to decode incoming content, and prolonged access to the default mode network to maintain and manipulate the narrative model. Subregions within the integrative semantic hubs in bilateral anterior temporal lobe appear differentially sensitive to the need to rapidly decode external input (exogenous processing) versus reflecting on context stored in the narrative model (endogenous processing). The latter is most consistently reported in the middle temporal gyrus portion of the hub, suggesting that this region serves as a critical hinge point, dynamically interacting with the default mode network to facilitate endogenous processing. The present study investigated this by characterizing the functional connectivity profiles of anterior temporal lobe subregions during movie-viewing and examining content-evoked changes in these profiles. Compared to other anterior temporal lobe subregions, middle temporal gyrus was more functionally connected to the default mode network, and these connections were strengthened during moments with limited incoming information, providing viewers with a chance to reflect on the content. Rather than being functionally distinct networks, the semantic and default mode systems dynamically interact to facilitate reflection or endogenous semantic processing. Future work should further characterize how neural systems dynamically shift from integrated to segregated states in response to everyday processing demands.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8653780/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39592236",
    "title": "Optimal Estimation of Local Motion-in-Depth with Naturalistic Stimuli.",
    "journal": "The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "D Herrera-Esposito",
      "J Burge"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1113/jphysiol.1974.sp010736",
    "pmc_id": "PMC1330664",
    "abstract": "Estimating the motion of objects in depth is important for behavior and is strongly supported by binocular visual cues. To understand both how the brain should estimate motion in depth and how natural constraints shape and limit performance in two local 3D motion tasks, we develop image-computable ideal observers from a large number of binocular video clips created from a dataset of natural images. The observers spatiotemporally filter the videos and nonlinearly decode 3D motion from the filter responses. The optimal filters and decoder are dictated by the task-relevant image statistics and are specific to each task. Multiple findings emerge. First, two distinct filter subpopulations are spontaneously learned for each task. For 3D speed estimation, filters emerge for processing either changing disparities over time or interocular velocity differences, cues that are used by humans. For 3D direction estimation, filters emerge for discriminating either left-right or toward-away motion. Second, the filter responses, conditioned on the latent variable, are well-described as jointly Gaussian, and the covariance of the filter responses carries the information about the task-relevant latent variable. Quadratic combination is thus necessary for optimal decoding, which can be implemented by biologically plausible neural computations. Finally, the ideal observer yields nonobvious-and in some cases counterintuitive-patterns of performance like those exhibited by humans. Important characteristics of human 3D motion processing and estimation may therefore result from optimal information processing in the early visual system.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1330664/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40632275",
    "title": "The effects of sex and age on movie-watching functional connectivity and movie clip classification.",
    "journal": "Brain structure & function",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "C Yang",
      "BB Biswal",
      "P Wang"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.tics.2016.10.005",
    "pmc_id": "PMC8933248",
    "abstract": "Functional connectivity (FC) is a key tool for understanding the complex interactions within the human brain, highlighting connections between various regions. This study delves into the multifaceted influences shaping functional magnetic resonance imaging FC patterns during movie watching, focusing on the effects of sex, age, and movie clip. Leveraging the Human Connectome Project dataset, we systematically examine FC patterns elicited during movie watching. Notably, sex-specific variations in FC are observed, with females exhibiting heightened FC within visual, limbic, and default mode networks, while males display predominant intra-network connectivity within somatomotor and attention networks. Age-related variations further manifest, revealing FC increases with age in early adulthood (21-35 years old) within some specific networks. Moreover, our investigation unveils the profound influence of movie clips on FC patterns, with significant interactions observed between clips, sex, and age. Feature selection using the Average Cross-Session Correlation method highlights FC as distinct fingerprints of clips, and the Support Vector Machine classifier shows high accuracy (Accuracy > 0.9) when using these features. Our findings underscore the importance of considering individual demographic factors and external stimuli in understanding neural connectivity dynamics during movie-watching, with implications for both basic neuroscience research and clinical neuroimaging applications.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8933248/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40042099",
    "title": "The Relations Among Anxiety, Movie-Watching, and in-Scanner Motion.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "PA Kirk",
      "P Qamar",
      "A Zugman"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/jmt/47.4.335",
    "pmc_id": "PMC11544371",
    "abstract": "Movie-watching fMRI has emerged as a theoretically viable platform for studying neurobiological substrates of affective states and emotional disorders such as pathological anxiety. However, using anxiety-inducing movie clips to probe relevant states impacted by psychopathology could risk exacerbating in-scanner movement, decreasing signal quality/quantity and thus statistical power. This could be especially problematic in target populations such as children who typically move more in the scanner. Consequently, we assessed: (1) the extent to which an anxiety-inducing movie clip altered in-scanner data quality (movement, censoring, and DVARS) in a pediatric sample with and without anxiety disorders (n = 78); and (2) investigated interactions between anxiety symptoms and movie-attenuated motion in a highly powered, transdiagnostic pediatric sample (n = 2058). Our results suggest anxiogenic movie-watching in fact reduces in-scanner movement compared to resting-state, increasing the quantity/quality of data. In one measure, pathological anxiety appeared to impact movie-attenuated motion, but the effect was small. Given potential boosts to data quality, future developmental neuroimaging studies of anxiety may benefit from the use of movie paradigms.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11544371/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41004228",
    "title": "Oxytocin and vasopressin enhance social pain empathy via common and distinct of neural expressions, genetic pathways, and networks.",
    "journal": "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "X Zhang",
      "Q Liu",
      "C Liu"
    ],
    "doi": "10.6084/m9.figshare.27860538.v1",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3516702",
    "abstract": "Witnessing social distress of others evokes social pain empathy, a complex process engaging cognitive, affective, and motivational dimensions. Although hypothalamic neuropeptides oxytocin (OXT) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) are known to modulate social function, their respective contributions to the process of social pain empathy have not been systematically characterized. To address this, we employed a multimethod approach, combining naturalistic fMRI, functional decoding, gene expression analysis, and pharmacological modulation using intranasal administration of OXT (24 IU) or AVP (20 IU) in a cohort of 163 participants. Our findings indicated that both OXT and AVP significantly enhanced pain empathy compared to placebo, with overlapping yet distinct neurofunctional and genetic modulation patterns. Specially, both neuropeptides engaged a shared perception-cognition-emotion network, including frontal regions, the insula, superior temporal sulcus, and parahippocampal gyrus. Crucially, they exhibited divergent mechanistic profiles: OXT preferentially influenced resting-state connectivity and perceptional-visual processing areas, while AVP exerted stronger modulation on perceptional-execution circuits. These differential effects aligned with their unique receptor expression patterns and interactions with distinct genetic systems. By delineating how OXT and AVP shape the multidimensional nature of social pain empathy, our findings provide a neurobiological framework for understanding these processes and offer potential pathways for targeted interventions in social cognition disorders.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3516702/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41413049",
    "title": "Motion-corrected eye tracking improves gaze accuracy during visual fMRI experiments.",
    "journal": "Nature communications",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "J Park",
      "JY Jeon",
      "R Kim"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/cercor/bhu217",
    "pmc_id": "PMC12848023",
    "abstract": "Human eye movements are essential for understanding cognition, yet achieving high-precision eye tracking in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) remains challenging. Even slight head shifts from the initial calibration position can introduce drift in eye tracking data, leading to substantial gaze inaccuracies. To address this, we present Motion-Corrected Eye Tracking (MoCET), which corrects drift using head motion parameters derived from fMRI preprocessing. MoCET requires no additional hardware and can be applied retrospectively to existing datasets. We show that it outperforms conventional detrending methods with respect to accuracy of gaze estimation and offers higher spatial and temporal precision compared to magnetic resonance-based eye tracking approaches. By overcoming a key limitation in integrating eye tracking with fMRI, MoCET enables precise investigations of naturalistic vision and cognition in fMRI research.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12848023/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40474503",
    "title": "Functional reconfiguration between rest and movie watching relates to theory-of-mind performance among young and older adults.",
    "journal": "Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "C Hughes",
      "RC French",
      "R Betzel"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1007/s11357-023-01008-9",
    "pmc_id": "PMC10828367",
    "abstract": "Functional connectivity among macroscale brain networks is minimally modified across rest and task states, suggesting a shared functional architecture supporting efficient neural processing. The extent of reconfiguration (ie change between states), moreover, shows individual variation, with less reconfiguration generally being associated with better task performance. Older adults reconfigure more than young adults when completing goal-directed tasks with known age deficits. Less is known about task states that more closely mirror the complexity of daily life. Thus, we examined reconfiguration between rest and passive viewing of a mockumentary television show, involving richly contextualized social interactions, among young (18 to 35 years; N = 101) and older (61 to 92 years; N = 83) adults. Then, we related reconfiguration to participants' accurate understanding of those social interactions (theory of mind) on a novel task conducted outside of the scanner. Consistent with prior work, older adults exhibited greater cortical reconfiguration and worse theory-of-mind performance compared to young adults. Greater reconfiguration related to worse theory-of-mind performance, and the default and frontoparietal networks most strongly contributed to this association. These findings provide greater insight into how reduced neural specializations with age disrupt social cognition even in the absence of an explicit task.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10828367/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40623840",
    "title": "Conceptual Knowledge Shapes the Neural Representations of Learned Faces in Non-Visual Regions of the Brain.",
    "journal": "The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "KN Noad",
      "DM Watson",
      "TJ Andrews"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1177/0963721416688114",
    "pmc_id": "PMC7233541",
    "abstract": "When we encounter people in real life, increased visual experience with their face is accompanied by an accumulation of conceptual knowledge about them. This conceptual knowledge has been shown to play an important role in face recognition. However, the extent to which conceptual knowledge influences neural responses to faces in visual or non-visual regions of the brain is not clear. To address this question, participants (male and female) learned faces in a naturalistic viewing paradigm in which conceptual information was modulated by presenting a movie to participants in either its original sequence or a scrambled sequence. Although participants in both groups had the same overall perceptual experience, this manipulation had a significant effect on the conceptual understanding of events. After a delay, participants viewed a new movie featuring the previously learned faces while neural activity was measured using fMRI. No significant differences were observed between the Original and Scrambled groups in core face-selective regions of the visual brain. This aligns with the fact that overall exposure to faces was consistent across groups, ensuring that our manipulation did not impact visual processing of faces. In contrast, differences between the groups were evident within a network of regions that are typically associated with processing person knowledge. This network of regions was also able to discriminate the identity of the key characters based on the response to the faces. These findings provide important insights into the level of neural processing at which conceptual knowledge influences familiar face recognition during natural viewing.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7233541/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41062767",
    "title": "Associations between fMRI signal amplitude, hemispheric asymmetry, and task performance.",
    "journal": "Communications biology",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "D Tomasi",
      "ND Volkow"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.05.039",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3720828",
    "abstract": "Interhemispheric asymmetry is a core feature of human brain organization, yet its functional relevance across cognitive tasks remains incompletely understood. Using data from 989 healthy adults, we examined patterns of functional asymmetry and their relationship to bilateral fMRI signal amplitude and task performance across seven tasks: motor, language, social cognition, relational processing, working memory, gambling, and emotion. An fMRI-derived asymmetry index was computed across 17 task epochs and mapped onto the cortical surface. Here we show that both fMRI signal amplitude and asymmetry were positively associated with task accuracy across multiple networks and tasks epochs. These associations were strongest in language, frontoparietal, and dorsal attention networks during high-demand tasks, such as story comprehension, relational processing, and working memory. Partial least squares regression revealed that amplitude was a more robust predictor of task accuracy than asymmetry. These findings suggest that greater neural activation drives stronger hemispheric differentiation and supports cognitive performance.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3720828/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41402333",
    "title": "Processing of natural scenes in the human pulvinar.",
    "journal": "Nature communications",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "DR Guest",
      "EJ Allen",
      "KN Kay"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/cercor/bhu277",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4585523",
    "abstract": "Theories of high-level visual processing and object recognition have typically focused on ventral visual cortex, often overlooking potential contributions of subcortical structures. The pulvinar, via extensive connections with visual cortex, is well-positioned to play a role in high-level vision. Here, we investigated how the pulvinar represents visual information using a high-resolution 7 T fMRI dataset of responses to tens of thousands of natural scenes. Encoding models targeting different stimulus features revealed a pulvinar region selective for bodies and faces presented in the contralateral visual hemifield. Complementary model-free analyses demonstrated that this region is co-active with body- and face-selective cortical areas during natural scene viewing. These findings challenge cortico-centric models of object vision by demonstrating that principles of cortical organization, including functional clustering and hierarchical organization, also manifest in subcortex. Moreover, they highlight the value of using naturalistic stimuli to probe visual function.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4585523/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40550920",
    "title": "Hippocampal systems for event encoding and sequencing during ongoing narrative comprehension.",
    "journal": "Communications biology",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "J Park",
      "H Song",
      "WM Shim"
    ],
    "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.15597906",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6095216",
    "abstract": "Narrative comprehension requires encoding individual events and sequencing them into coherent structures. This study demonstrates how the hippocampus contributes to these processes during ongoing narrative processing. Participants viewed a temporally scrambled movie and subsequently recounted its inferred original story during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. Content encoding and event sequencing abilities were assessed by comparing semantic similarity and temporal order between movie annotations and recall. Functional connectivity between the hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) predicted sequencing ability during moments when past and present information are integrated, identified through pre-defined narrative structures and data-driven language models. Conversely, hippocampus-posterior medial cortex (PMC) connectivity predicted content encoding abilities following event boundaries. These findings reveal two distinct hippocampus-centered memory systems in narrative processing: the hippocampus-PMC system for event encoding and the hippocampus-vmPFC system for their integration into coherent narratives.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6095216/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40843025",
    "title": "How much is \"enough\"? Considerations for functional connectivity reliability in pediatric naturalistic fMRI.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "S Rai",
      "KJ Godfrey",
      "K Graff"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/hbm.25736",
    "pmc_id": "PMC8837589",
    "abstract": "Reliable functional connectivity (FC) measurements are important for robust neuroimaging findings, yet pediatric functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) faces unique challenges due to head motion and bias toward shorter scans. Passive viewing conditions during fMRI offer advantages for scanning pediatric populations, but FC reliability under these conditions remains underexplored. Here, we used precision fMRI data collected across three passive viewing conditions to directly compare FC reliability profiles between 25 pre-adolescent children and 25 adults, with each participant providing over 2.8 hours of data over 4 sessions. We found that FC test-retest correlations increased asymptotically with scan length, with children requiring nearly twice the post-censored scan time (24.6 minutes) compared with adults (14.4 minutes) to achieve comparable reliability, and that this effect was only partly attributable to head motion. Reliability differences between lower-motion adults and higher-motion children were spatially non-uniform and largest in ventral anterior temporal and frontal regions. While averaging features within functional networks improved intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) reliability, values for higher-motion children remained in the poor-to-fair ICC range even with 24 minutes of data. Of note, we observed substantial increases in edge-wise ICC between 24 and 54 minutes of data. Viewing conditions with greater engagement reduced head motion in children but had lower FC reliability than less engaging \"low-demand\" videos, suggesting complex state- or condition-related trade-offs. These findings have important implications for developmental neuroimaging study design, particularly for higher motion pediatric populations.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8837589/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40497019",
    "title": "Closing the diagnostic gap: A narrative review of recent advances in functional MRI diagnostics in spinal cord injury.",
    "journal": "Brain & spine",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "CJ Entenmann",
      "K Kersting",
      "P Vajkoczy"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.bas.2025.104283",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4359126",
    "abstract": "INTRODUCTION: Conventional MRI (T1 and T2-weighted sequences) is the standard for diagnosing spinal cord injuries but often lacks specificity, showing limited correlation with microstructural changes and function. This creates a diagnostic gap, especially in patients with mild or ambiguous symptoms, delaying early intervention. RESEARCH QUESTION: Can advanced MRI techniques-such as quantitative MRI (qMRI), functional MRI (fMRI), Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS), and Transmagnetic Stimulation (TMS)-address the limitations of conventional MRI by providing enhanced diagnostic metrics and biomarkers of spinal cord integrity? MATERIAL AND METHODS: This study reviews advanced MRI modalities and their potential to provide quantifiable insights into spinal cord microstructure and function. It also explores the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in analyzing complex datasets to support more comprehensive diagnostics. RESULTS: Advanced MRI techniques show promise in improving diagnostic accuracy and enabling individualized prognostic assessments. Parameters specific to each modality could serve as biomarkers for injury extent and neurological recovery, supporting their potential as clinical endpoints in therapy trials. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: These advanced imaging techniques, combined with AI for data integration, offer a transformative potential for personalized diagnostics in spinal cord injury. Yet, significant technical and validation challenges remain, requiring large, multicenter studies to confirm their effectiveness and enable clinical application. Successfully addressing these challenges could close the diagnostic gap, optimize patient outcomes, and redefine spinal cord injury management.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4359126/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "41250621",
    "title": "Mother-child dyadic interactions shape the developing social brain and Theory of Mind in young children.",
    "journal": "eLife",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "L Li",
      "J Xiao",
      "W Zhao"
    ],
    "doi": "10.3724/SP.J.1041.2008.00571",
    "pmc_id": "PMC5521249",
    "abstract": "Social cognition develops through a complex interplay between neural maturation and environmental factors, yet the neurobehavioral mechanisms underlying this process remain unclear. Using a naturalistic fMRI paradigm, we investigated the effects of age and parental caregiving on social brain development and Theory of Mind (ToM) in 34 mother-child dyads. The functional maturity of social brain networks was positively associated with age, while mother-child neural synchronization during movie viewing was related to dyadic relationship quality. Crucially, parenting and child factors interactively shaped social cognition outcomes, mediated by ToM abilities. Our findings demonstrate the dynamic interplay of neurocognitive development and interpersonal synchrony in early childhood social cognition, and provide novel evidence for neurodevelopmental plasticity and reciprocal determinism. This integrative approach, bridging brain, behavior, and parenting environment, advances our understanding of the complex mechanisms shaping social cognition. The insights gained can inform personalized interventions promoting social competence, emphasizing the critical importance of nurturing parental relationships in facilitating healthy social development.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5521249/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39835965",
    "title": "Tripartite organization of brain state dynamics underlying spoken narrative comprehension.",
    "journal": "eLife",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "L Liu",
      "J Jiang",
      "H Li"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1007/s11357-023-01008-9",
    "pmc_id": "PMC10828367",
    "abstract": "Speech comprehension involves the dynamic interplay of multiple cognitive processes, from basic sound perception, to linguistic encoding, and finally to complex semantic-conceptual interpretations. How the brain handles the diverse streams of information processing remains poorly understood. Applying Hidden Markov Modeling to fMRI data obtained during spoken narrative comprehension, we reveal that the whole brain networks predominantly oscillate within a tripartite latent state space. These states are, respectively, characterized by high activities in the sensory-motor (State #1), bilateral temporal (State #2), and default mode networks (DMN; State #3) regions, with State #2 acting as a transitional hub. The three states are selectively modulated by the acoustic, word-level semantic, and clause-level semantic properties of the narrative. Moreover, the alignment with both the best performer and the group-mean in brain state expression can predict participants' narrative comprehension scores measured from the post-scan recall. These results are reproducible with different brain network atlas and generalizable to two datasets consisting of young and older adults. Our study suggests that the brain underlies narrative comprehension by switching through a tripartite state space, with each state probably dedicated to a specific component of language faculty, and effective narrative comprehension relies on engaging those states in a timely manner.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10828367/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40046341",
    "title": "The neural characteristics influencing literacy outcome in children with cochlear implants.",
    "journal": "Brain communications",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "N Koirala",
      "J Manning",
      "S Neumann"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/braincomms/fcaf086",
    "pmc_id": "PMC11154148",
    "abstract": "Early hearing intervention in children with congenital hearing loss is critical for improving auditory development, speech recognition and both expressive and receptive language, which translates into better educational outcomes and quality of life. In children receiving hearing aids or cochlear implants, both adaptive and potentially maladaptive neural reorganization can mitigate higher-level functions that impact reading. The focus of the present study was to dissect the neural underpinnings of the reading networks in children with cochlear implants and assess how these networks mediate the reading ability in children with cochlear implants. Cortical activity was obtained using naturalistic stimuli from 75 children (50 cochlear implant recipients, aged 7-17, and 25 age-matched children with typical hearing) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Assessment of basic reading skill was completed using the Reading Inventory and Scholastic Evaluation. We computed directed functional connectivity of the haemodynamic activity in reading-associated anterior and posterior brain regions using the time-frequency causality estimation method known as temporal partial directed coherence. The influence of the cochlear implant-related clinical measures on reading outcome and the extent to which neural connectivity mediated these effects were examined using structural equation modelling. Our findings reveal that the timing of intervention (e.g. age of first cochlear implants, age of first hearing aid) in children with cochlear implants significantly influenced their reading ability. Furthermore, reading-related processes (word recognition and decoding, vocabulary, morphology and sentence processing) were substantially mediated by the directed functional connectivity within reading-related neural circuits. Notably, the impact of these effects differed across various reading skills. Hearing age, defined as the age at which a participant received adequate access to sound, and age of initial implantation emerged as robust predictors of reading proficiency. The current study is one of the first to identify the influence of neural characteristics on reading outcomes for children with cochlear implants. The findings emphasize the importance of the duration of deafness and early intervention for enhancing outcomes and strengthening neural network connections. However, the neural evidence further suggested that such positive influences cannot fully offset the detrimental impact of early auditory deprivation. Consequently, additional, perhaps more specialized, interventions might be necessary to maximize the benefits of early prosthetic hearing intervention.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11154148/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40047799",
    "title": "Movies reveal the fine-grained organization of infant visual cortex.",
    "journal": "eLife",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "CT Ellis",
      "TS Yates",
      "MJ Arcaro"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/cercor/bhad327",
    "pmc_id": "PMC9618143",
    "abstract": "Studying infant minds with movies is a promising way to increase engagement relative to traditional tasks. However, the spatial specificity and functional significance of movie-evoked activity in infants remains unclear. Here, we investigated what movies can reveal about the organization of the infant visual system. We collected fMRI data from 15 awake infants and toddlers aged 5-23 months who attentively watched a movie. The activity evoked by the movie reflected the functional profile of visual areas. Namely, homotopic areas from the two hemispheres responded similarly to the movie, whereas distinct areas responded dissimilarly, especially across dorsal and ventral visual cortex. Moreover, visual maps that typically require time-intensive and complicated retinotopic mapping could be predicted, albeit imprecisely, from movie-evoked activity in both data-driven analyses (i.e. independent component analysis) at the individual level and by using functional alignment into a common low-dimensional embedding to generalize across participants. These results suggest that the infant visual system is already structured to process dynamic, naturalistic information and that fine-grained cortical organization can be discovered from movie data. How babies see the world is a mystery. They cannot share their experiences, and adults cannot recall this time. Clever experimental methods are needed to understand sensory processing in babies' brains and how variations from adults could cause them to have different experiences. However, finding ways to study infant brain structure and function has challenged scientists. Babies cannot complete many cognitive tasks used to assess adult brain activity. It can also be difficult to use imaging tools like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that require individuals to lay still for extended periods, which can be challenging for infants who are often wiggly and have short attention spans. As a result, many questions remain unanswered about infant brain organization and function. Recent technological advances have made it easier to study infant brain activity. Scientists have developed approaches allowing infants to watch a movie while being comfortably positioned in an MRI machine. Infants and toddlers will often happily watch a film for minutes at a time, enabling scientists to observe how their brains respond to what they see on the screen. Ellis et al. used this approach to assess the organization of the visual system in the brains of 15 infants while they watched movies during functional MRI. The researchers compared the infant scans with scans of adult brains who watched the same film, which revealed that babies’ brain activity is surprisingly structured and similar to that of adults. Moreover, the organization of the adult brain could predict the organization of the infant brain. Ellis et al. show that scanning infants while they watch movies can be a valuable way to study their brain activity. The experiments reveal important similarities in adult and infant visual processing, helping to identify the foundation on which visual development rests. The movie-watching experiments may also provide a model for scientists to study other types of infant perception and cognition. Movies can help scientists compare brain activity in typically developing infants to those with neurodevelopmental conditions, which could one day help clinicians create new avenues for diagnosis or treatment.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9618143/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39592232",
    "title": "Multivariate Pattern Analysis of EEG Reveals Neural Mechanism of Naturalistic Target Processing in Attentional Blink.",
    "journal": "The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "M Jahanian",
      "MF Joanisse",
      "B Wang"
    ],
    "doi": "10.3758/s13423-021-01973-2",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6397950",
    "abstract": "The human brain has inherent limitations in consciously processing visual information. When individuals monitor a rapid sequence of images for detecting two targets, they often miss the second target (T2) if it appears within a short time frame of 200-500 ms after the first target (T1), a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB). The neural mechanism behind the AB remains unclear, largely due to the use of simplistic visual items such as letters and digits in conventional AB experiments, which differ significantly from naturalistic vision. This study employs advanced multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) of human electroencephalography (EEG) data (including 17 females and 18 males) to explore the neural representations associated with target processing within a naturalistic paradigm under conditions where AB does or does not occur. Our MVPA analysis successfully decoded the identity of target images from EEG data. Moreover, in the AB condition, characterized by a limited time between targets, T1 processing coincided with T2 processing, resulting in the suppression of late representational markers of both T1 and T2. Conversely, in the condition with longer inter-target interval, neural representations endured for a longer duration. These findings suggest that the AB can be attributed to the suppression of neural representations in the later stages of target processing.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6397950/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40607906",
    "title": "Intrinsic dynamic shapes responses to external stimulation in the human brain.",
    "journal": "eLife",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "M Nentwich",
      "M Leszczynski",
      "CE Schroeder"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1038/s41583-020-0262-x",
    "pmc_id": "PMC7334830",
    "abstract": "Sensory stimulation of the brain reverberates in its recurrent neural networks. However, current computational models of brain activity do not separate immediate sensory responses from this intrinsic dynamic. We apply a vector-autoregressive model with external input (VARX), combining the concepts of 'functional connectivity' and 'encoding models', to intracranial recordings in humans. This model captures the extrinsic effect of the stimulus and separates that from the intrinsic effect of the recurrent brain dynamic. We find that the intrinsic dynamic enhances and prolongs the neural responses to scene cuts, eye movements, and sounds. Failing to account for these extrinsic inputs leads to spurious recurrent connections that govern the intrinsic dynamic. We also find that the recurrent connectivity during rest is reduced during movie watching. The model shows that an external stimulus can reduce intrinsic noise. It also shows that sensory areas have mostly outward, whereas higher-order brain areas have mostly incoming connections. We conclude that the response to an external audiovisual stimulus can largely be attributed to the intrinsic dynamic of the brain, already observed during rest.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7334830/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39422490",
    "title": "Extending insights from LeDoux: using movies to study subjective, clinically meaningful experiences in neuroscience.",
    "journal": "Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "PA Kirk",
      "DS Pine",
      "K Kircanski"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/(SICI)1099-0992(199607)26:4<557::AID-EJSP769>3.0.CO;2-4",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6969259",
    "abstract": "Neuroscience research with public health relevance to emotional disorders examines brain-behavior relations. Joe LeDoux's legacy advances these efforts in ways that remain truly unique. While recognized for his basic science research, he also inspires applied researchers, guiding an agenda for clinical scientists: understanding the pathophysiology of altered subjective experiences in emotional disorders. For brain imaging, movie-watching approaches help clinicians realize this agenda due to movies' relative strength in evoking rich, meaningful subjective experiences. Here, we describe methodological advances in movie-watching paradigms that might sustain LeDoux's impact by facilitating the discovery of neural mechanisms generating complex emotional responses. Of note, while linking subjective emotion to pathophysiology is a first step, innovations in movie-watching designs, especially involving therapeutic techniques for emotional disorders, can boost clinical application. Leveraging research on pathophysiology to generate novel therapy reflects the clinical legacy sustained through Joe LeDoux's rousing career.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6969259/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40998765",
    "title": "Fragmentation and multithreading of experience in the default-mode network.",
    "journal": "Nature communications",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "F Yazin",
      "G Majumdar",
      "N Bramley"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1038/s41467-019-08519-0",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6355898",
    "abstract": "Reliance on internal predictive models of the world is central to many theories of human cognition. Yet it is unknown whether humans acquire multiple separate internal models, each evolved for a specific domain, or maintain a globally unified representation. Using fMRI during naturalistic experiences (movie watching and narrative listening), we show that three topographically distinct midline prefrontal cortical regions perform distinct predictive operations. The ventromedial PFC updates contextual predictions (States), the anteromedial PFC governs reference frame shifts for social predictions (Agents), and the dorsomedial PFC predicts transitions across the abstract state spaces (Actions). Prediction-error-driven neural transitions in these regions, indicative of model updates, coincided with subjective belief changes in a domain-specific manner. We find these parallel top-down predictions are unified and selectively integrated with visual sensory streams in the Precuneus, shaping participants' ongoing experience. Results generalized across sensory modalities and content, suggesting humans recruit abstract, modular predictive models for both vision and language. Our results highlight a key feature of human world modeling: fragmenting information into abstract domains before global integration.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6355898/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39919742",
    "title": "Semantic language decoding across participants and stimulus modalities.",
    "journal": "Current biology : CB",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "J Tang",
      "AG Huth"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.024",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6873338",
    "abstract": "Brain decoders that reconstruct language from semantic representations have the potential to improve communication for people with impaired language production. However, training a semantic decoder for a participant currently requires many hours of brain responses to linguistic stimuli, and people with impaired language production often also have impaired language comprehension. In this study, we tested whether language can be decoded from a goal participant without using any linguistic training data from that participant. We trained semantic decoders on brain responses from separate reference participants and then used functional alignment to transfer the decoders to the goal participant. Cross-participant decoder predictions were semantically related to the stimulus words, even when functional alignment was performed using movies with no linguistic content. To assess how much semantic representations are shared between language and vision, we compared functional alignment accuracy using story and movie stimuli and found that performance was comparable in most cortical regions. Finally, we tested whether cross-participant decoders could be robust to lesions by excluding brain regions from the goal participant prior to functional alignment and found that cross-participant decoders do not depend on data from any single brain region. These results demonstrate that cross-participant decoding can reduce the amount of linguistic training data required from a goal participant and potentially enable language decoding from participants who struggle with both language production and language comprehension.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6873338/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39843939",
    "title": "Neural processing of naturalistic audiovisual events in space and time.",
    "journal": "Communications biology",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "Y Hu",
      "Y Mohsenzadeh"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1371/journal.pbio.3002564",
    "pmc_id": "PMC11754444",
    "abstract": "Our brain seamlessly integrates distinct sensory information to form a coherent percept. However, when real-world audiovisual events are perceived, the specific brain regions and timings for processing different levels of information remain less investigated. To address that, we curated naturalistic videos and recorded functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) data when participants viewed videos with accompanying sounds. Our findings reveal early asymmetrical cross-modal interaction, with acoustic information represented in both early visual and auditory regions, while visual information only identified in visual cortices. The visual and auditory features were processed with similar onset but different temporal dynamics. High-level categorical and semantic information emerged in multisensory association areas later in time, indicating late cross-modal integration and its distinct role in converging conceptual information. Comparing neural representations to a two-branch deep neural network model highlighted the necessity of early cross-modal connections to build a biologically plausible model of audiovisual perception. With EEG-fMRI fusion, we provided a spatiotemporally resolved account of neural activity during the processing of naturalistic audiovisual stimuli.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11754444/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800867",
    "title": "Representation of navigational affordances and ego-motion in the occipital place area.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2025",
    "authors": [
      "FS Kamps",
      "EM Chen",
      "N Kanwisher"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1109/42.906424",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4585523",
    "abstract": "Humans effortlessly use vision to plan and guide navigation through the local environment, or \"scene.\" A network of three cortical regions responds selectively to visual scene information, including the occipital (OPA), parahippocampal (PPA), and medial place areas (MPA)-but how this network supports visually guided navigation is unclear. Recent evidence suggests that one region, in particular, the OPA, supports visual representations for navigation, while PPA and MPA support other aspects of scene processing. However, most previous studies tested only static scene images, which lack the dynamic experience of navigating through scenes. We used dynamic movie stimuli to test whether OPA, PPA, and MPA represent two critical kinds of navigationally relevant information: navigational affordances (e.g., can I walk to the left, right, or both?) and ego-motion (e.g., am I walking forward or backward? turning left or right?). We found that OPA is sensitive to both affordances and ego-motion, as well as the conflict between these cues-for example, turning toward vs. away from an open doorway. These effects were significantly weaker or absent in PPA and MPA. Responses in OPA were also dissociable from those in early visual cortex, consistent with the idea that OPA responses are not merely explained by lower-level visual features. OPA responses to affordances and ego-motion were stronger in the contralateral than in ipsilateral visual field, suggesting that OPA encodes navigationally relevant information within an egocentric reference frame. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that OPA contains visual representations that are useful for planning and guiding navigation through scenes.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4585523/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39378200",
    "title": "Longitudinal single-subject neuroimaging study reveals effects of daily environmental, physiological, and lifestyle factors on functional brain connectivity.",
    "journal": "PLoS biology",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "AM Triana",
      "J Salmi",
      "NMEA Hayward"
    ],
    "doi": "10.18637/jss.v045.i03",
    "pmc_id": "PMC5296400",
    "abstract": "Our behavior and mental states are constantly shaped by our environment and experiences. However, little is known about the response of brain functional connectivity to environmental, physiological, and behavioral changes on different timescales, from days to months. This gives rise to an urgent need for longitudinal studies that collect high-frequency data. To this end, for a single subject, we collected 133 days of behavioral data with smartphones and wearables and performed 30 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans measuring attention, memory, resting state, and the effects of naturalistic stimuli. We find traces of past behavior and physiology in brain connectivity that extend up as far as 15 days. While sleep and physical activity relate to brain connectivity during cognitively demanding tasks, heart rate variability and respiration rate are more relevant for resting-state connectivity and movie-watching. This unique data set is openly accessible, offering an exceptional opportunity for further discoveries. Our results demonstrate that we should not study brain connectivity in isolation, but rather acknowledge its interdependence with the dynamics of the environment, changes in lifestyle, and short-term fluctuations such as transient illnesses or restless sleep. These results reflect a prolonged and sustained relationship between external factors and neural processes. Overall, precision mapping designs such as the one employed here can help to better understand intraindividual variability, which may explain some of the observed heterogeneity in fMRI findings. The integration of brain connectivity, physiology data and environmental cues will propel future environmental neuroscience research and support precision healthcare.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5296400/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39349446",
    "title": "The morphospace of the brain-cognition organisation.",
    "journal": "Nature communications",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "V Pacella",
      "V Nozais",
      "L Talozzi"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/cercor/bhx179",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6095216",
    "abstract": "Over the past three decades, functional neuroimaging has amassed abundant evidence of the intricate interplay between brain structure and function. However, the potential anatomical and experimental overlap, independence, granularity, and gaps between functions remain poorly understood. Here, we show the latent structure of the current brain-cognition knowledge and its organisation. Our approach utilises the most comprehensive meta-analytic fMRI database (Neurosynth) to compute a three-dimensional embedding space-morphospace capturing the relationship between brain functions as we currently understand them. The space structure enables us to statistically test the relationship between functions expressed as the degree to which the characteristics of each functional map can be anticipated based on its similarities with others-the predictability index. The morphospace can also predict the activation pattern of new, unseen functions and decode thoughts and inner states during movie watching. The framework defined by the morphospace will spur the investigation of novel functions and guide the exploration of the fabric of human cognition.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6095216/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39636743",
    "title": "When abstract becomes concrete, naturalistic encoding of concepts in the brain.",
    "journal": "eLife",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "VN Kewenig",
      "G Vigliocco",
      "JI Skipper"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1098/rstb.2017.0138",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6015825",
    "abstract": "Language is acquired and processed in complex and dynamic naturalistic contexts, involving the simultaneous processing of connected speech, faces, bodies, objects, etc. How words and their associated concepts are encoded in the brain during real-world processing is still unknown. Here, the representational structure of concrete and abstract concepts was investigated during movie watching to address the extent to which brain responses dynamically change depending on visual context. First, across contexts, concrete and abstract concepts are shown to encode different experience-based information in separable sets of brain regions. However, these differences are reduced when multimodal context is considered. Specifically, the response profile of abstract words becomes more concrete-like when these are processed in visual scenes highly related to their meaning. Conversely, when the visual context is unrelated to a given concrete word, the activation pattern resembles more that of abstract conceptual processing. These results suggest that while concepts generally encode habitual experiences, the underlying neurobiological organisation is not fixed but depends dynamically on available contextual information. When we learn and use language, we deal with two main types of concepts. Concrete concepts, which refer to things we directly experience (like a chair, running or the colour blue), and abstract concepts, which refer to ideas that we are unable to sense directly (like truth, democracy or love). Most studies have looked at how people process these concepts in isolation, such as by reading single words on a screen. This revealed that the human brain processes each concept differently, with concrete concepts typically activating brain regions involved in sensory and motor experiences, and abstract concepts activating regions involved in emotion and complex thinking. However, the experiments conducted in these studies do not represent real life situations, where humans often encounter and process both concepts simultaneously. For instance, at the same time as processing language, someone may also be seeing, hearing, and experiencing other things in their environment. Kewenig et al. wanted to understand whether the brain processes abstract and concrete concepts differently depending on what a person may be visualizing at the same time. To achieve this, they used a technique known as functional MRI to record which regions of the brain are activated as participants watched different movies. The team found that when abstract concepts (such as love) appeared with related visual information (such as people kissing), the brain processed them more like concrete concepts, engaging sensory and motor regions. Conversely, when concrete concepts (like a chair) appeared without related visual information, the brain processed them more like abstract concepts, engaging regions involved in complex thinking. This suggests that the way the human brain processes meaning is very dynamic and constantly adapting to available contextual information. These findings could help improve artificial intelligence systems that process language and visual information together, making them better at understanding context-dependent meaning. They might also benefit people with language disorders by informing the development of more effective therapies that consider how context affects understanding. However, more research is needed to confirm these findings and develop practical applications, particularly studies testing whether similar brain patterns occur in other natural situations.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6015825/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800468",
    "title": "High-resolution 7T fMRI reveals the visual zone of the human claustrum.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "A Coates",
      "D Linhardt",
      "C Windischberger"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.09.060",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6383677",
    "abstract": "The claustrum is a thin grey matter structure located between the insular cortexand the putamen. The function of the claustrum is largely unknown with diversehypotheses ranging from multisensory integration and consciousness to attentionand cognitive control. Much research on the function of the claustrum relies oninvasive techniques in animal models, as the claustrum's uniquely thinshape makes it difficult to image non-invasively in human subjects. In thecurrent proof-of-concept study, we used high-resolution ultra-high field (7Tesla) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure activity in thehuman claustrum during the processing of naturalistic stimuli. We presentedshort video clips as visual only, auditory only, or audiovisual conditions whileparticipants performed a central fixation task. We found distinct visualresponses in both the left and the right claustrum at a consistent spatiallocation across participants, hemispheres, and sessions. We also founddeactivations in response to auditory stimulation. These deactivations wereconfined to the right claustrum and did not overlap with visual activity. Thedeactivation in response to auditory stimulation demonstrates the complexity ofthe claustrum's functional organization and suggests functionaldifferentiation within the claustrum. This is the first study to demonstratesensory-specific effects within the human claustrum. It opens the possibilityfor studying the claustrum's role in higher-level aspects of sensoryprocessing in humans.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6383677/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38699619",
    "title": "How does the human brain process noisy speech in real life? Insights from the second-person neuroscience perspective.",
    "journal": "Cognitive neurodynamics",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "Z Li",
      "D Zhang"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1097/AUD.0b013e318228036a",
    "pmc_id": "PMC9067435",
    "abstract": "Comprehending speech with the existence of background noise is of great importance for human life. In the past decades, a large number of psychological, cognitive and neuroscientific research has explored the neurocognitive mechanisms of speech-in-noise comprehension. However, as limited by the low ecological validity of the speech stimuli and the experimental paradigm, as well as the inadequate attention on the high-order linguistic and extralinguistic processes, there remains much unknown about how the brain processes noisy speech in real-life scenarios. A recently emerging approach, i.e., the second-person neuroscience approach, provides a novel conceptual framework. It measures both of the speaker's and the listener's neural activities, and estimates the speaker-listener neural coupling with regarding of the speaker's production-related neural activity as a standardized reference. The second-person approach not only promotes the use of naturalistic speech but also allows for free communication between speaker and listener as in a close-to-life context. In this review, we first briefly review the previous discoveries about how the brain processes speech in noise; then, we introduce the principles and advantages of the second-person neuroscience approach and discuss its implications to unravel the linguistic and extralinguistic processes during speech-in-noise comprehension; finally, we conclude by proposing some critical issues and calls for more research interests in the second-person approach, which would further extend the present knowledge about how people comprehend speech in noise.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9067435/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800416",
    "title": "Broad brain networks support curiosity-motivated incidental learning of naturalistic dynamic stimuli with and without monetary incentives.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "S Meliss",
      "A Tsuchiyagaito",
      "P Byrne"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/cercor/bhx202",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6057550",
    "abstract": "Curiosity-the intrinsic desire to know-is a concept central to thehuman mind and knowledge acquisition. Experimental studies oninformation-seeking have found that curiosity facilitates memory encoding andexhibits similar rewarding properties as extrinsic rewards/incentives, byeliciting a dopaminergic response in the reward network. However, it is notclear whether these findings hold with more naturalistic dynamic stimuli and howthe joint effect of curiosity and extrinsic incentive manifests in learning andneural activation patterns. Herein, we presented participants with videos ofmagic tricks across two behavioural (N1= 77, N2= 78) and one fMRI study (N = 50) and asked them to ratesubjective feelings of curiosity, while also performing a judgement task thatwas incentivised for the half of participants. Incidental memory for the magictrick was tested a week later. The integrated results showed that both curiosityand availability of extrinsic incentives enhanced encoding but did not interactwith each other. However, curiosity influenced only high-confidence recognitionmemory, whereas extrinsic incentives affected memory regardless of confidence,suggesting the involvement of different encoding mechanisms. Analysis of thefMRI data using the intersubject synchronisation framework showed that, whilethe effects of curiosity on memory were located in the hippocampus anddopaminergic brain areas, neither the effects of curiosity nor incentivesthemselves were found in the often-implicated reward network. Instead, they wereassociated with cortical areas involved in processing uncertainly and attention.These results challenge a traditional focus on reward networks in curiosity andhighlight the involvement of broader brain networks.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6057550/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800271",
    "title": "Preliminary evidence for altered brain-heart coherence during anxiogenic movies.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "PA Kirk",
      "OJ Robinson"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1759-16.2016",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6596574",
    "abstract": "During states of anxiety, fundamental threat circuitry in the brain can increase heart rate via alterations in autonomic balance (increased sympathetic activity and parasympathetic withdrawal) and may serve to promote interoceptive integration and awareness of cardiac signals. Moreover, evidence indicates pathological anxiety could be associated with increased communication between the brain and the heart. Yet, this phenomenon remains not well understood. For instance, studies in this area have been conducted within the confines of tightly controlled experimental paradigms. Whether anxiety impacts brain-heart communication outside of such experimental settings, and in relatively more naturalistic contexts, is less clear. Here, we used a suspenseful movie fMRI paradigm to study induced anxiety (n = 29 healthy volunteers; Caltech Conte dataset;Kliemann et al., 2022). We predicted that brain responses across an anxiety-relevant \"defensive response network\" (amygdala, hypothalamus, periaqueductal gray, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, subgenual anterior cingulate, and anterior insula;Abend et al., 2022) would show increased coherence with heart rate as participants watched a suspenseful movie clip compared to a non-suspenseful movie clip. Counter to our predictions, we found decreased coherence between heart rate and brain responses during increased anxiety, namely in amygdala-prefrontal circuitry. We suggest these alterations may be underpinned by parasympathetic withdrawal and/or decreased interoceptive awareness during suspenseful movie-watching.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6596574/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38547065",
    "title": "Brain decoding of spontaneous thought: Predictive modeling of self-relevance and valence using personal narratives.",
    "journal": "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "HJ Kim",
      "BK Lux",
      "E Lee"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1101/2023.08.18.553808",
    "pmc_id": "PMC10998624",
    "abstract": "The contents and dynamics of spontaneous thought are important factors for personality traits and mental health. However, assessing spontaneous thoughts is challenging due to their unconstrained nature, and directing participants' attention to report their thoughts may fundamentally alter them. Here, we aimed to decode two key content dimensions of spontaneous thought-self-relevance and valence-directly from brain activity. To train functional MRI-based predictive models, we used individually generated personal stories as stimuli in a story-reading task to mimic narrative-like spontaneous thoughts (n = 49). We then tested these models on multiple test datasets (total n = 199). The default mode, ventral attention, and frontoparietal networks played key roles in the predictions, with the anterior insula and midcingulate cortex contributing to self-relevance prediction and the left temporoparietal junction and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex contributing to valence prediction. Overall, this study presents brain models of internal thoughts and emotions, highlighting the potential for the brain decoding of spontaneous thought.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10998624/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38193918",
    "title": "Frequency-specific functional difference between gyri and sulci in naturalistic paradigm fMRI.",
    "journal": "Brain structure & function",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "L Wang",
      "Y Yang",
      "X Hu"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1007/s11682-020-00347-x",
    "pmc_id": "8863378",
    "abstract": "Disentangling functional difference between cortical folding patterns of gyri and sulci provides novel insights into the relationship between brain structure and function. Previous studies using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) have revealed that sulcal signals exhibit stronger high-frequency but weaker low-frequency components compared to gyral ones, suggesting that gyri may serve as functional integration centers while sulci are segregated local processing units. In this study, we utilize naturalistic paradigm fMRI (nfMRI) to explore the functional difference between gyri and sulci as it has proven to record stronger functional integrations compared to rsfMRI. We adopt a convolutional neural network (CNN) to classify gyral and sulcal fMRI signals in the whole brain (the global model) and within functional brain networks (the local models). The frequency-specific difference between gyri and sulci is then inferred from the power spectral density (PSD) profiles of the learned filters in the CNN model. Our experimental results show that nfMRI shows higher gyral-sulcal PSD contrast effect sizes in the global model compared to rsfMRI. In the local models, the effect sizes are either increased or decreased depending on frequency bands and functional complexity of the FBNs. This study highlights the advantages of nfMRI in depicting the functional difference between gyri and sulci, and provides novel insights into unraveling the relationship between brain structure and function.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8863378/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800368",
    "title": "Assessing the consistency and sensitivity of the neural correlates of narrative stimuli using functional near-infrared spectroscopy.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "M Kolisnyk",
      "S Novi",
      "A Abdalmalak"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.12.007",
    "pmc_id": "PMC7793571",
    "abstract": "Investigating how the brain responds to rich and complex narratives, such as engaging movies, has helped researchers study higher-order cognition in \"real-world\" scenarios. These neural correlates are particularly useful in populations where behavioral evidence of cognition alone is inadequate, such as children and certain patient populations. While this research has been primarily conducted in fMRI and EEG, whether functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) can reliably detect these neural correlates at an individual level, which is required for effective use in these populations, has yet to be established. This study replicated widespread inter-subject correlations (ISCs) in the frontal, parietal, and temporal cortices in fNIRS in healthy participants when they watched part of the TV episodeBang! You're Deadand listened to an audio clip from the movieTaken.Conversely, these ISCs were primarily restricted to temporal cortices when participants viewed scrambled versions of those clips. To assess whether these results were reliable at the single-participant level, two follow-up analyses were conducted. First, the consistency analysis compared each participant's ISCs against group results that excluded that individual. This approach found that 24 out of 26 participants inBang! You're Deadand 20/26 participants inTakenwere statistically similar to the group. Second, the sensitivity analysis measured whether machine-learning algorithms could decode between intact conditions and their scrambled counterparts. This approach yielded balanced accuracy scores of 81% inBang! You're Deadand 79% inTaken. Overall, the neural correlates of narrative stimuli, as assessed by fNIRS, are reproducible across participants, supporting its broad application to clinical and developmental populations.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7793571/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38012283",
    "title": "Should one go for individual- or group-level brain parcellations? A deep-phenotyping benchmark.",
    "journal": "Brain structure & function",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "B Thirion",
      "H Aggarwal",
      "AF Ponce"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1007/s12021-019-09445-8",
    "pmc_id": "3146590",
    "abstract": "The analysis and understanding of brain characteristics often require considering region-level information rather than voxel-sampled data. Subject-specific parcellations have been put forward in recent years, as they can adapt to individual brain organization and thus offer more accurate individual summaries than standard atlases. However, the price to pay for adaptability is the lack of group-level consistency of the data representation. Here, we investigate whether the good representations brought by individualized models are merely an effect of circular analysis, in which individual brain features are better represented by subject-specific summaries, or whether this carries over to new individuals, i.e., whether one can actually adapt an existing parcellation to new individuals and still obtain good summaries in these individuals. For this, we adapt a dictionary-learning method to produce brain parcellations. We use it on a deep-phenotyping dataset to assess quantitatively the patterns of activity obtained under naturalistic and controlled-task-based settings. We show that the benefits of individual parcellations are substantial, but that they vary a lot across brain systems.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3146590/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38488473",
    "title": "Decoding the dynamic perception of risk and speed using naturalistic stimuli: A multivariate, whole-brain analysis.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "U Ju",
      "C Wallraven"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/cercor/bhs352",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3920766",
    "abstract": "Time-resolved decoding of speed and risk perception in car driving is important for understanding the perceptual processes related to driving safety. In this study, we used an fMRI-compatible trackball with naturalistic stimuli to record dynamic ratings of perceived risk and speed and investigated the degree to which different brain regions were able to decode these. We presented participants with first-person perspective videos of cars racing on the same course. These videos varied in terms of subjectively perceived speed and risk profiles, as determined during a behavioral pilot. During the fMRI experiment, participants used the trackball to dynamically rate subjective risk in a first and speed in a second session and assessed overall risk and speed after watching each video. A standard multivariate correlation analysis based on these ratings revealed sparse decodability in visual areas only for the risk ratings. In contrast, the dynamic rating-based correlation analysis uncovered frontal, visual, and temporal region activation for subjective risk and dorsal visual stream and temporal region activation for subjectively perceived speed. Interestingly, further analyses showed that the brain regions for decoding risk changed over time, whereas those for decoding speed remained constant. Overall, our results demonstrate the advantages of time-resolved decoding to help our understanding of the dynamic networks associated with decoding risk and speed perception in realistic driving scenarios.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3920766/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38339911",
    "title": "Sniffing out meaning: Chemosensory and semantic neural network changes in sommeliers.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "M Carreiras",
      "I Quiñones",
      "HA Chen"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/hbm.26564",
    "pmc_id": "PMC2654926",
    "abstract": "Wine tasting is a very complex process that integrates a combination of sensation, language, and memory. Taste and smell provide perceptual information that, together with the semantic narrative that converts flavor into words, seem to be processed differently between sommeliers and naïve wine consumers. We investigate whether sommeliers' wine experience shapes only chemosensory processing, as has been previously demonstrated, or if it also modulates the way in which the taste and olfactory circuits interact with the semantic network. Combining diffusion-weighted images and fMRI (activation and connectivity) we investigated whether brain response to tasting wine differs between sommeliers and nonexperts (1) in the sensory neural circuits representing flavor and/or (2) in the neural circuits for language and memory. We demonstrate that training in wine tasting shapes the microstructure of the left and right superior longitudinal fasciculus. Using mediation analysis, we showed that the experience modulates the relationship between fractional anisotropy and behavior: the higher the fractional anisotropy the higher the capacity to recognize wine complexity. In addition, we found functional differences between sommeliers and naïve consumers affecting the flavor sensory circuit, but also regions involved in semantic operations. The former reflects a capacity for differential sensory processing, while the latter reflects sommeliers' ability to attend to relevant sensory inputs and translate them into complex verbal descriptions. The enhanced synchronization between these apparently independent circuits suggests that sommeliers integrated these descriptions with previous semantic knowledge to optimize their capacity to distinguish between subtle differences in the qualitative character of the wine.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2654926/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38729961",
    "title": "Consensus-building conversation leads to neural alignment.",
    "journal": "Nature communications",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "B Sievers",
      "C Welker",
      "U Hasson"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1111/2041-210X.13434",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4944200",
    "abstract": "Conversation is a primary means of social influence, but its effects on brain activity remain unknown. Previous work on conversation and social influence has emphasized public compliance, largely setting private beliefs aside. Here, we show that consensus-building conversation aligns future brain activity within groups, with alignment persisting through novel experiences participants did not discuss. Participants watched ambiguous movie clips during fMRI scanning, then conversed in groups with the goal of coming to a consensus about each clip's narrative. After conversation, participants' brains were scanned while viewing the clips again, along with novel clips from the same movies. Groups that reached consensus showed greater similarity of brain activity after conversation. Participants perceived as having high social status spoke more and signaled disbelief in others, and their groups had unequal turn-taking and lower neural alignment. By contrast, participants with central positions in their real-world social networks encouraged others to speak, facilitating greater group neural alignment. Socially central participants were also more likely to become neurally aligned to others in their groups.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4944200/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39096896",
    "title": "A shared model-based linguistic space for transmitting our thoughts from brain to brain in natural conversations.",
    "journal": "Neuron",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "Z Zada",
      "A Goldstein",
      "S Michelmann"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1101/2023.08.21.553821",
    "pmc_id": "PMC10038805",
    "abstract": "Effective communication hinges on a mutual understanding of word meaning in different contexts. We recorded brain activity using electrocorticography during spontaneous, face-to-face conversations in five pairs of epilepsy patients. We developed a model-based coupling framework that aligns brain activity in both speaker and listener to a shared embedding space from a large language model (LLM). The context-sensitive LLM embeddings allow us to track the exchange of linguistic information, word by word, from one brain to another in natural conversations. Linguistic content emerges in the speaker's brain before word articulation and rapidly re-emerges in the listener's brain after word articulation. The contextual embeddings better capture word-by-word neural alignment between speaker and listener than syntactic and articulatory models. Our findings indicate that the contextual embeddings learned by LLMs can serve as an explicit numerical model of the shared, context-rich meaning space humans use to communicate their thoughts to one another.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10038805/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39413130",
    "title": "Deciphering the neural responses to a naturalistic persuasive message.",
    "journal": "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "I Ntoumanis",
      "J Sheronova",
      "A Davydova"
    ],
    "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.2229813",
    "pmc_id": "PMC11513929",
    "abstract": "Effective health promotion may benefit from understanding how persuasion emerges. While earlier research has identified brain regions implicated in persuasion, these studies often relied on event-related analyses and frequently simplified persuasive communications. The present study investigates the neural basis of valuation change induced by a persuasive healthy eating call, employing naturalistic stimuli. Fifty healthy participants performed two blocks of a bidding task, in which they had to bid on sugar-containing, sugar-free, and nonedible products during functional MRI. In between the two blocks, they listened to a persuasive healthy eating call that influenced their bidding behavior. Intriguingly, participants who resisted persuasion exhibited increased synchronization of brain activity during listening in several regions, including default mode network structures. Additionally, intersubject functional connectivity among these brain regions was found to be weaker in persuaded individuals. These results emphasize the individualized nature of processing persuasive messages, challenging conventional interpretations of synchronized neural activity. Our findings support the emerging practice of tailoring persuasive messages in health promotion campaigns.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11513929/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800465",
    "title": "Integrating anatomical and functional landmarks for interparticipant alignment of imaging data.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "J Jeganathan",
      "B Paton",
      "N Koussis"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1006/nimg.2001.0931",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3432236",
    "abstract": "Aligning brain maps using functional features rather than anatomical landmarks potentially improves individual identifiability and increases power in group neuroimaging studies. However, alignment based purely on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) risks omitting useful anatomical constraints. An optimized combination of anatomical and functional feature alignment could balance the advantages of each approach. We used 3T fMRI data from 80 Human Connectome Project participants during seven tasks. The effectiveness of functional and anatomical alignment methods was evaluated using interparticipant decoding accuracy. Functional alignment mapped vertices from participants to a template, aligning their fMRI responses to shared responses during movie viewing. The template was derived from the combined fMRI responses of a set of participants. We benchmarked the results against existing functional alignment methods, including the Procrustes method and ridge regression. A common practice in the field is to use the same participants for the alignment cohort and for template generation. We found that this inflates decoding accuracies by mixing anatomical and functional alignment. Based on this, we recommend that a template's generalizability should be evaluated against held-out participants. Building on these findings, we investigated whether inter-subject alignment could be improved by integrating anatomical and functional information. We studied a modified alignment method where a single parameter interpolates between pure functional alignment and anatomical alignment. Optimizing the parameter with nested cross-validation, we found that integrating anatomical and functional information robustly reduced noise and improved alignment across a variety of alignment methods. Combining anatomical and functional information accounts for individual heterogeneity in functional topographies while incorporating anatomical constraints. The integrated alignment described here improves inter-subject decoding using functional brain maps. These findings also demonstrate that brain anatomy provides a lens into the inherent variability of individual neural landscapes.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3432236/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38445552",
    "title": "Dynamic threat-reward neural processing under semi-naturalistic ecologically relevant scenarios.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "DJ Levitas",
      "TW James"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/hbm.26648",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3174820",
    "abstract": "Studies of affective neuroscience have typically employed highly controlled, static experimental paradigms to investigate the neural underpinnings of threat and reward processing in the brain. Yet our knowledge of affective processing in more naturalistic settings remains limited. Specifically, affective studies generally examine threat and reward features separately and under brief time periods, despite the fact that in nature organisms are often exposed to the simultaneous presence of threat and reward features for extended periods. To study the neural mechanisms of threat and reward processing under distinct temporal profiles, we created a modified version of the PACMAN game that included these environmental features. We also conducted two automated meta-analyses to compare the findings from our semi-naturalistic paradigm to those from more constrained experiments. Overall, our results revealed a distributed system of regions sensitive to threat imminence and a less distributed system related to reward imminence, both of which exhibited overlap yet neither of which involved the amygdala. Additionally, these systems broadly overlapped with corresponding meta-analyses, with the notable absence of the amygdala in our findings. Together, these findings suggest a shared system for salience processing that reveals a heightened sensitivity toward environmental threats compared to rewards when both are simultaneously present in an environment. The broad correspondence of our findings to meta-analyses, consisting of more tightly controlled paradigms, illustrates how semi-naturalistic studies can corroborate previous findings in the literature while also potentially uncovering novel mechanisms resulting from the nuances and contexts that manifest in such dynamic environments.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3174820/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38454134",
    "title": "The cortical representation of language timescales is shared between reading and listening.",
    "journal": "Communications biology",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "C Chen",
      "T Dupré la Tour",
      "JL Gallant"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1109/MCSE.2007.55",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4586273",
    "abstract": "Language comprehension involves integrating low-level sensory inputs into a hierarchy of increasingly high-level features. Prior work studied brain representations of different levels of the language hierarchy, but has not determined whether these brain representations are shared between written and spoken language. To address this issue, we analyze fMRI BOLD data that were recorded while participants read and listened to the same narratives in each modality. Levels of the language hierarchy are operationalized as timescales, where each timescale refers to a set of spectral components of a language stimulus. Voxelwise encoding models are used to determine where different timescales are represented across the cerebral cortex, for each modality separately. These models reveal that between the two modalities timescale representations are organized similarly across the cortical surface. Our results suggest that, after low-level sensory processing, language integration proceeds similarly regardless of stimulus modality.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4586273/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38703090",
    "title": "Mapping brain function in adults and young children during naturalistic viewing with high-density diffuse optical tomography.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "K Tripathy",
      "M Fogarty",
      "AM Svoboda"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1117/1.NPh.5.1.011012",
    "pmc_id": "PMC5613216",
    "abstract": "Human studies of early brain development have been limited by extant neuroimaging methods. MRI scanners present logistical challenges for imaging young children, while alternative modalities like functional near-infrared spectroscopy have traditionally been limited by image quality due to sparse sampling. In addition, conventional tasks for brain mapping elicit low task engagement, high head motion, and considerable participant attrition in pediatric populations. As a result, typical and atypical developmental trajectories of processes such as language acquisition remain understudied during sensitive periods over the first years of life. We evaluate high-density diffuse optical tomography (HD-DOT) imaging combined with movie stimuli for high resolution optical neuroimaging in awake children ranging from 1 to 7 years of age. We built an HD-DOT system with design features geared towards enhancing both image quality and child comfort. Furthermore, we characterized a library of animated movie clips as a stimulus set for brain mapping and we optimized associated data analysis pipelines. Together, these tools could map cortical responses to movies and contained features such as speech in both adults and awake young children. This study lays the groundwork for future research to investigate response variability in larger pediatric samples and atypical trajectories of early brain development in clinical populations.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5613216/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38531165",
    "title": "ENIGMA's simple seven: Recommendations to enhance the reproducibility of resting-state fMRI in traumatic brain injury.",
    "journal": "NeuroImage. Clinical",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "K Caeyenberghs",
      "P Imms",
      "A Irimia"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/jmri.25548",
    "pmc_id": "PMC5449268",
    "abstract": "Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) provides researchers and clinicians with a powerful tool to examine functional connectivity across large-scale brain networks, with ever-increasing applications to the study of neurological disorders, such as traumatic brain injury (TBI). While rsfMRI holds unparalleled promise in systems neurosciences, its acquisition and analytical methodology across research groups is variable, resulting in a literature that is challenging to integrate and interpret. The focus of this narrative review is to address the primary methodological issues including investigator decision points in the application of rsfMRI to study the consequences of TBI. As part of the ENIGMA Brain Injury working group, we have collaborated to identify a minimum set of recommendations that are designed to produce results that are reliable, harmonizable, and reproducible for the TBI imaging research community. Part one of this review provides the results of a literature search of current rsfMRI studies of TBI, highlighting key design considerations and data processing pipelines. Part two outlines seven data acquisition, processing, and analysis recommendations with the goal of maximizing study reliability and between-site comparability, while preserving investigator autonomy. Part three summarizes new directions and opportunities for future rsfMRI studies in TBI patients. The goal is to galvanize the TBI community to gain consensus for a set of rigorous and reproducible methods, and to increase analytical transparency and data sharing to address the reproducibility crisis in the field.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5449268/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38488450",
    "title": "Neural signatures of shared subjective affective engagement and disengagement during movie viewing.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "M Nanni-Zepeda",
      "J DeGutis",
      "C Wu"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.06.077",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4090954",
    "abstract": "When watching a negative emotional movie, we differ from person to person in the ease with which we engage and the difficulty with which we disengage throughout a temporally evolving narrative. We investigated neural responses of emotional processing, by considering inter-individual synchronization in subjective emotional engagement and disengagement. The neural underpinnings of these shared responses are ideally studied in naturalistic scenarios like movie viewing, wherein individuals emotionally engage and disengage at their own time and pace throughout the course of a narrative. Despite the rich data that naturalistic designs can bring to the study, there is a challenge in determining time-resolved behavioral markers of subjective engagement and disengagement and their underlying neural responses. We used a within-subject cross-over design instructing 22 subjects to watch clips of either neutral or sad content while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants watched the same movies a second time while continuously annotating the perceived emotional intensity, thus enabling the mapping of brain activity and emotional experience. Our analyses revealed that between-participant similarity in waxing (engagement) and waning (disengagement) of emotional intensity was directly related to the between-participant similarity in spatiotemporal patterns of brain activation during the movie(s). Similar patterns of engagement reflected common activation in the bilateral ventromedial prefrontal cortex, regions often involved in self-referenced evaluation and generation of negative emotions. Similar patterns of disengagement reflected common activation in central executive and default mode network regions often involved in top-down emotion regulation. Together this work helps to better understand cognitive and neural mechanisms underpinning engagement and disengagement from emotionally evocative narratives.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4090954/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38989605",
    "title": "Cerebellum and social abilities: A structural and functional connectivity study in a transdiagnostic sample.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "Y Kong",
      "M Roser",
      "I Bègue"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1101/771584",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4010955",
    "abstract": "The cerebellum has been involved in social abilities and autism. Given that the cerebellum is connected to the cortex via the cerebello-thalamo-cortical loop, the connectivity between the cerebellum and cortical regions involved in social interactions, that is, the right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) has been studied in individuals with autism, who suffer from prototypical deficits in social abilities. However, existing studies with small samples of categorical, case-control comparisons have yielded inconsistent results due to the inherent heterogeneity of autism, suggesting that investigating how clinical dimensions are related to cerebellar-rTPJ functional connectivity might be more relevant. Therefore, our objective was to study the functional connectivity between the cerebellum and rTPJ, focusing on its association with social abilities from a dimensional perspective in a transdiagnostic sample. We analyzed structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional MRI (fMRI) scans obtained during naturalistic films watching from a large transdiagnostic dataset, the Healthy Brain Network (HBN), and examined the association between cerebellum-rTPJ functional connectivity and social abilities measured with the social responsiveness scale (SRS). We conducted univariate seed-to-voxel analysis, multivariate canonical correlation analysis (CCA), and predictive support vector regression (SVR). We included 1404 subjects in the structural analysis (age: 10.516 ± 3.034, range: 5.822-21.820, 506 females) and 414 subjects in the functional analysis (age: 11.260 ± 3.318 years, range: 6.020-21.820, 161 females). Our CCA model revealed a significant association between cerebellum-rTPJ functional connectivity, full-scale IQ (FSIQ) and SRS scores. However, this effect was primarily driven by FSIQ as suggested by SVR and univariate seed-to-voxel analysis. We also demonstrated the specificity of the rTPJ and the influence of structural anatomy in this association. Our results suggest that there is a complex relationship between cerebellum-rTPJ connectivity, social performance and IQ. This relationship is specific to the cerebellum-rTPJ connectivity, and is largely related to structural anatomy in these two regions. PRACTITIONER POINTS: We analyzed cerebellum-right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) connectivity in a pediatric transdiagnostic sample. We found a complex relationship between cerebellum and rTPJ connectivity, social performance and IQ. Cerebellum and rTPJ functional connectivity is related to structural anatomy in these two regions.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4010955/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39513091",
    "title": "Cerebral hyperactivation across the Alzheimer's disease pathological cascade.",
    "journal": "Brain communications",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "N Corriveau-Lecavalier",
      "JN Adams",
      "L Fischer"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190236557.013.400",
    "pmc_id": "PMC10352931",
    "abstract": "Neuronal dysfunction in specific brain regions or across distributed brain networks is a known feature of Alzheimer's disease. An often reported finding in the early stage of the disease is the presence of increased functional MRI (fMRI) blood oxygenation level-dependent signal under task conditions relative to cognitively normal controls, a phenomenon known as 'hyperactivation'. However, research in the past decades yielded complex, sometimes conflicting results. The magnitude and topology of fMRI hyperactivation patterns have been found to vary across the preclinical and clinical spectrum of Alzheimer's disease, including concomitant 'hypoactivation' in some cases. These incongruences are likely due to a range of factors, including the disease stage at which the cohort is examined, the brain areas or networks studied and the fMRI paradigm utilized to evoke these functional abnormalities. Additionally, a perennial question pertains to the nature of hyperactivation in the context of Alzheimer's disease. Some propose it reflects compensatory mechanisms to sustain cognitive performance, while others suggest it is linked to the pathological disruption of a highly regulated homeostatic cycle that contributes to, or even drives, disease progression. Providing a coherent narrative for these empirical and conceptual discrepancies is paramount to develop disease models, understand the synergy between hyperactivation and the Alzheimer's disease pathological cascade and tailor effective interventions. We first provide a comprehensive overview of functional brain changes spanning the course from normal ageing to the clinical spectrum of Alzheimer's disease. We then highlight evidence supporting a close relationship between fMRI hyperactivation and in vivo markers of Alzheimer's pathology. We primarily focus on task-based fMRI studies in humans, but also consider studies using different functional imaging techniques and animal models. We then discuss the potential mechanisms underlying hyperactivation in the context of Alzheimer's disease and provide a testable framework bridging hyperactivation, ageing, cognition and the Alzheimer's disease pathological cascade. We conclude with a discussion of future challenges and opportunities to advance our understanding of the fundamental disease mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease, and the promising development of therapeutic interventions incorporating or aimed at hyperactivation and large-scale functional systems.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10352931/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39508555",
    "title": "Precise control of neural activity using dynamically optimized electrical stimulation.",
    "journal": "eLife",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "NP Shah",
      "AJ Phillips",
      "S Madugula"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1101/2022.05.29.493858",
    "pmc_id": "PMC11067857",
    "abstract": "Neural implants have the potential to restore lost sensory function by electrically evoking the complex naturalistic activity patterns of neural populations. However, it can be difficult to predict and control evoked neural responses to simultaneous multi-electrode stimulation due to nonlinearity of the responses. We present a solution to this problem and demonstrate its utility in the context of a bidirectional retinal implant for restoring vision. A dynamically optimized stimulation approach encodes incoming visual stimuli into a rapid, greedily chosen, temporally dithered and spatially multiplexed sequence of simple stimulation patterns. Stimuli are selected to optimize the reconstruction of the visual stimulus from the evoked responses. Temporal dithering exploits the slow time scales of downstream neural processing, and spatial multiplexing exploits the independence of responses generated by distant electrodes. The approach was evaluated using an experimental laboratory prototype of a retinal implant: large-scale, high-resolution multi-electrode stimulation and recording of macaque and rat retinal ganglion cells ex vivo. The dynamically optimized stimulation approach substantially enhanced performance compared to existing approaches based on static mapping between visual stimulus intensity and current amplitude. The modular framework enabled parallel extensions to naturalistic viewing conditions, incorporation of perceptual similarity measures, and efficient implementation for an implantable device. A direct closed-loop test of the approach supported its potential use in vision restoration.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11067857/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38950362",
    "title": "Hemispheric functional organization, as revealed by naturalistic neuroimaging, in pediatric epilepsy patients with cortical resections.",
    "journal": "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "S Robert",
      "MC Granovetter",
      "C Patterson"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1184/R1/26026603",
    "pmc_id": "PMC5845848",
    "abstract": "Functional changes in the pediatric brain following neural injuries attest to remarkable feats of plasticity. Investigations of the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie this plasticity have largely focused on activation in the penumbra of the lesion or in contralesional, homotopic regions. Here, we adopt a whole-brain approach to evaluate the plasticity of the cortex in patients with large unilateral cortical resections due to drug-resistant childhood epilepsy. We compared the functional connectivity (FC) in patients' preserved hemisphere with the corresponding hemisphere of matched controls as they viewed and listened to a movie excerpt in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. The preserved hemisphere was segmented into 180 and 200 parcels using two different anatomical atlases. We calculated all pairwise multivariate statistical dependencies between parcels, or parcel edges, and between 22 and 7 larger-scale functional networks, or network edges, aggregated from the smaller parcel edges. Both the left and right hemisphere-preserved patient groups had widespread reductions in FC relative to matched controls, particularly for within-network edges. A case series analysis further uncovered subclusters of patients with distinctive edgewise changes relative to controls, illustrating individual postoperative connectivity profiles. The large-scale differences in networks of the preserved hemisphere potentially reflect plasticity in the service of maintained and/or retained cognitive function.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5845848/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39169063",
    "title": "Replay-triggered brain-wide activation in humans.",
    "journal": "Nature communications",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "Q Huang",
      "Z Xiao",
      "Q Yu"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1038/s41467-024-51582-5",
    "pmc_id": "PMC2555436",
    "abstract": "The consolidation of discrete experiences into a coherent narrative shapes the cognitive map, providing structured mental representations of our experiences. In this process, past memories are reactivated and replayed in sequence, fostering hippocampal-cortical dialogue. However, brain-wide engagement coinciding with sequential reactivation (or replay) of memories remains largely unexplored. In this study, employing simultaneous EEG-fMRI, we capture both the spatial and temporal dynamics of memory replay. We find that during mental simulation, past memories are replayed in fast sequences as detected via EEG. These transient replay events are associated with heightened fMRI activity in the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex. Replay occurrence strengthens functional connectivity between the hippocampus and the default mode network, a set of brain regions key to representing the cognitive map. On the other hand, when subjects are at rest following learning, memory reactivation of task-related items is stronger than that of pre-learning rest, and is also associated with heightened hippocampal activation and augmented hippocampal connectivity to the entorhinal cortex. Together, our findings highlight a distributed, brain-wide engagement associated with transient memory reactivation and its sequential replay.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2555436/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38012107",
    "title": "Sense of own body shapes neural processes of memory encoding and reinstatement.",
    "journal": "Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "H Iriye",
      "M Chancel",
      "HH Ehrsson"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/cercor/bhad443",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4204853",
    "abstract": "How is the fundamental sense of one's body, a basic aspect of selfhood, incorporated into memories for events? Disrupting bodily self-awareness during encoding impairs functioning of the left posterior hippocampus during retrieval, which implies weakened encoding. However, how changes in bodily self-awareness influence neural encoding is unknown. We investigated how the sense of body ownership, a core aspect of the bodily self, impacts encoding in the left posterior hippocampus and additional core memory regions including the angular gyrus. Furthermore, we assessed the degree to which memories are reinstated according to body ownership during encoding and vividness during retrieval as a measure of memory strength. We immersed participants in naturalistic scenes where events unfolded while we manipulated feelings of body ownership with a full-body-illusion during functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. One week later, participants retrieved memories for the videos during functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. A whole brain analysis revealed that patterns of activity in regions including the right hippocampus and angular gyrus distinguished between events encoded with strong versus weak body ownership. A planned region-of-interest analysis showed that patterns of activity in the left posterior hippocampus specifically could predict body ownership during memory encoding. Using the wider network of regions sensitive to body ownership during encoding and the left posterior hippocampus as separate regions-of-interest, we observed that patterns of activity present at encoding were reinstated more during the retrieval of events encoded with strong body ownership and high memory vividness. Our results demonstrate how the sense of physical self is bound within an event during encoding, which facilitates reactivation of a memory trace during retrieval.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4204853/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39349055",
    "title": "Neural Representations of Concreteness and Concrete Concepts Are Specific to the Individual.",
    "journal": "The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "TL Botch",
      "ES Finn"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1038/s41467-020-15804-w",
    "pmc_id": "PMC7171176",
    "abstract": "Different people listening to the same story may converge upon a largely shared interpretation while still developing idiosyncratic experiences atop that shared foundation. What linguistic properties support this individualized experience of natural language? Here, we investigate how the \"concrete-abstract\" axis-the extent to which a word is grounded in sensory experience-relates to within- and across-subject variability in the neural representations of language. Leveraging a dataset of human participants of both sexes who each listened to four auditory stories while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrate that neural representations of \"concreteness\" are both reliable across stories and relatively unique to individuals, while neural representations of \"abstractness\" are variable both within individuals and across the population. Using natural language processing tools, we show that concrete words exhibit similar neural representations despite spanning larger distances within a high-dimensional semantic space, which potentially reflects an underlying representational signature of sensory experience-namely, imageability-shared by concrete words but absent from abstract words. Our findings situate the concrete-abstract axis as a core dimension that supports both shared and individualized representations of natural language.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7171176/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800471",
    "title": "High performers demonstrate greater neural synchrony than low performers across behavioral domains.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "TA Chamberlain",
      "A Corriveau",
      "H Song"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.jad.2022.09.071",
    "pmc_id": "PMC9842385",
    "abstract": "Heterogeneity in brain activity can give rise to heterogeneity in behavior, which in turn comprises our distinctive characteristics as individuals. Studying the path from brain to behavior, however, often requires making assumptions about how similarity in behavior scales with similarity in brain activity. Here, we expand upon recent work (Finn et al., 2020) which proposes a theoretical framework for testing the validity of such assumptions. Using intersubject representational similarity analysis in two independent movie-watching functional MRI (fMRI) datasets, we probe how brain-behavior relationships vary as a function of behavioral domain and participant sample. We find evidence that, in some cases, the neural similarity of two individuals is not correlated with behavioral similarity. Rather, individuals with higher behavioral scores are more similar to other high scorers whereas individuals with lower behavioral scores are dissimilar from everyone else. Ultimately, our findings motivate a more extensive investigation of both the structure of brain-behavior relationships and the tacit assumption that people who behave similarly will demonstrate shared patterns of brain activity.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9842385/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39008675",
    "title": "Dissonant music engages early visual processing.",
    "journal": "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "F Bravo",
      "J Glogowski",
      "EA Stamatakis"
    ],
    "doi": "10.6084/m9.figshare.21345240.v1",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3427872",
    "abstract": "The neuroscientific examination of music processing in audio-visual contexts offers a valuable framework to assess how auditory information influences the emotional encoding of visual information. Using fMRI during naturalistic film viewing, we investigated the neural mechanisms underlying the effect of music on valence inferences during mental state attribution. Thirty-eight participants watched the same short-film accompanied by systematically controlled consonant or dissonant music. Subjects were instructed to think about the main character's intentions. The results revealed that increasing levels of dissonance led to more negatively valenced inferences, displaying the profound emotional impact of musical dissonance. Crucially, at the neuroscientific level and despite music being the sole manipulation, dissonance evoked the response of the primary visual cortex (V1). Functional/effective connectivity analysis showed a stronger coupling between the auditory ventral stream (AVS) and V1 in response to tonal dissonance and demonstrated the modulation of early visual processing via top-down feedback inputs from the AVS to V1. These V1 signal changes indicate the influence of high-level contextual representations associated with tonal dissonance on early visual cortices, serving to facilitate the emotional interpretation of visual information. Our results highlight the significance of employing systematically controlled music, which can isolate emotional valence from the arousal dimension, to elucidate the brain's sound-to-meaning interface and its distributive crossmodal effects on early visual encoding during naturalistic film viewing.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3427872/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38376190",
    "title": "Mapping the functional and structural connectivity of the scene network.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "DM Watson",
      "TJ Andrews"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/hbm.26628",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3174820",
    "abstract": "The recognition and perception of places has been linked to a network of scene-selective regions in the human brain. While previous studies have focussed on functional connectivity between scene-selective regions themselves, less is known about their connectivity with other cortical and subcortical regions in the brain. Here, we determine the functional and structural connectivity profile of the scene network. We used fMRI to examine functional connectivity between scene regions and across the whole brain during rest and movie-watching. Connectivity within the scene network revealed a bias between posterior and anterior scene regions implicated in perceptual and mnemonic aspects of scene perception respectively. Differences between posterior and anterior scene regions were also evident in the connectivity with cortical and subcortical regions across the brain. For example, the Occipital Place Area (OPA) and posterior Parahippocampal Place Area (PPA) showed greater connectivity with visual and dorsal attention networks, while anterior PPA and Retrosplenial Complex showed preferential connectivity with default mode and frontoparietal control networks and the hippocampus. We further measured the structural connectivity of the scene network using diffusion tractography. This indicated both similarities and differences with the functional connectivity, highlighting biases between posterior and anterior regions, but also between ventral and dorsal scene regions. Finally, we quantified the structural connectivity between the scene network and major white matter tracts throughout the brain. These findings provide a map of the functional and structural connectivity of scene-selective regions to each other and the rest of the brain.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3174820/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38864574",
    "title": "Beyond faces: the contribution of the amygdala to visual processing in the macaque brain.",
    "journal": "Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "J Taubert",
      "SG Wardle",
      "A Patterson"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.10.083",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3625447",
    "abstract": "The amygdala is present in a diverse range of vertebrate species, such as lizards, rodents, and primates; however, its structure and connectivity differs across species. The increased connections to visual sensory areas in primate species suggests that understanding the visual selectivity of the amygdala in detail is critical to revealing the principles underlying its function in primate cognition. Therefore, we designed a high-resolution, contrast-agent enhanced, event-related fMRI experiment, and scanned 3 adult rhesus macaques, while they viewed 96 naturalistic stimuli. Half of these stimuli were social (defined by the presence of a conspecific), the other half were nonsocial. We also nested manipulations of emotional valence (positive, neutral, and negative) and visual category (faces, nonfaces, animate, and inanimate) within the stimulus set. The results reveal widespread effects of emotional valence, with the amygdala responding more on average to inanimate objects and animals than faces, bodies, or social agents in this experimental context. These findings suggest that the amygdala makes a contribution to primate vision that goes beyond an auxiliary role in face or social perception. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of stimulus selection and experimental design when probing the function of the amygdala and other visually responsive brain regions.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3625447/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38566510",
    "title": "Limited but specific engagement of the mature language network during linguistic statistical learning.",
    "journal": "Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "JM Schneider",
      "TL Scott",
      "J Legault"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1371/JOURNAL.PBIO.3001119",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4736376",
    "abstract": "Statistical learning (SL) is the ability to detect and learn regularities from input and is foundational to language acquisition. Despite the dominant role of SL as a theoretical construct for language development, there is a lack of direct evidence supporting the shared neural substrates underlying language processing and SL. It is also not clear whether the similarities, if any, are related to linguistic processing, or statistical regularities in general. The current study tests whether the brain regions involved in natural language processing are similarly recruited during auditory, linguistic SL. Twenty-two adults performed an auditory linguistic SL task, an auditory nonlinguistic SL task, and a passive story listening task as their neural activation was monitored. Within the language network, the left posterior temporal gyrus showed sensitivity to embedded speech regularities during auditory, linguistic SL, but not auditory, nonlinguistic SL. Using a multivoxel pattern similarity analysis, we uncovered similarities between the neural representation of auditory, linguistic SL, and language processing within the left posterior temporal gyrus. No other brain regions showed similarities between linguistic SL and language comprehension, suggesting that a shared neurocomputational process for auditory SL and natural language processing within the left posterior temporal gyrus is specific to linguistic stimuli.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4736376/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800501",
    "title": "Intrinsic functional connectivity among memory networks does not predict individual differences in narrative recall.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "K Kurkela",
      "M Ritchey"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.119946",
    "pmc_id": "PMC11037888",
    "abstract": "Individuals differ greatly in their ability to remember the details of past events, yet little is known about the brain processes that explain such individual differences in a healthy young population. Previous research suggests that episodic memory relies on functional communication among ventral regions of the default mode network (\"DMN-C\") that are strongly interconnected with the medial temporal lobes. In this study, we investigated whether the intrinsic functional connectivity of the DMN-C subnetwork is related to individual differences in memory ability, examining this relationship across 243 individuals (ages 18-50 years) from the openly available Cambridge Center for Aging and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) dataset. We first estimated each participant's whole-brain intrinsic functional brain connectivity by combining data from resting-state, movie-watching, and sensorimotor task scans to increase statistical power. We then examined whether intrinsic functional connectivity predicted performance on a narrative recall task. We found no evidence that functional connectivity of the DMN-C, with itself, with other related DMN subnetworks, or with the rest of the brain, was related to narrative recall. Exploratory connectome-based predictive modeling (CBPM) analyses of the entire connectome revealed a whole-brain multivariate pattern that predicted performance, although these changes were largely outside of known memory networks. These results add to emerging evidence suggesting that individual differences in memory cannot be easily explained by brain differences in areas typically associated with episodic memory function.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11037888/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38685815",
    "title": "Neural substrates of affective temperaments: An intersubject representational similarity analysis to resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging in nonclinical subjects.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "Y Qiu",
      "X Wu",
      "B Liu"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/scan/nsz037",
    "pmc_id": "PMC5514428",
    "abstract": "Previous research has suggested that certain types of the affective temperament, including depressive, cyclothymic, hyperthymic, irritable, and anxious, are subclinical manifestations and precursors of mental disorders. However, the neural mechanisms that underlie these temperaments are not fully understood. The aim of this study was to identify the brain regions associated with different affective temperaments. We collected the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 211 healthy adults and evaluated their affective temperaments using the Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego Autoquestionnaire. We used intersubject representational similarity analysis to identify brain regions associated with each affective temperament. Brain regions associated with each affective temperament were detected. These regions included the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), precuneus, amygdala, thalami, hippocampus, and visual areas. The ACC, lingual gyri, and precuneus showed similar activity across several affective temperaments. The similarity in related brain regions was high among the cyclothymic, irritable, and anxious temperaments, and low between hyperthymic and the other affective temperaments. These findings may advance our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying affective temperaments and their potential relationship to mental disorders and may have potential implications for personalized treatment strategies for mood disorders.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5514428/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40800454",
    "title": "Unlocking near-whole-brain, layer-specific functional connectivity with 3D VAPER fMRI.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "Y Chai",
      "AT Morgan",
      "H Xie"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/(SICI)1097-0193(1997)5:4<218::AID-HBM2>3.0.CO;2-6",
    "pmc_id": "PMC9248311",
    "abstract": "Neuroscientific investigations at the cortical layer level not only enrich our knowledge of cortical micro-circuitry in vivo, but also help bridge the gap between macroscopic (e.g., conventional fMRI, behavior) and microscopic (e.g., extracellular recordings) measures of brain function. While laminar fMRI studies have extensively explored the evoked cortical response in multiple subsystems, the investigation of the laminar component of functional networks throughout the entire brain has been hindered due to constraints in high-resolution layer-fMRI imaging methodologies. Our study addresses this gap by introducing an innovative layer-specific 3D VAPER (integrated VASO and Perfusion contrast) technique in humans at 7 T, for achieving fMRI at high resolution (800 µm isotropic), high specificity (not biased toward unspecific vein signals as BOLD), high sensitivity (robust measurement at submillimeter resolution), high spatial accuracy (analysis in native fMRI space), near-whole-brain coverage (cerebellum not included), and eventually extending layer fMRI to more flexible connectivity-based experiment designs. To demonstrate its effectiveness, we collected 0.8-mm isotropic fMRI data during both resting-state and movie-watching scenarios, established a layer-specific functional connectivity analysis pipeline from individual to group levels, and explored the role of different cortical layers in maintaining functional networks. Our results revealed distinct layer-specific connectivity patterns within the default mode, somatomotor, and visual networks, as well as at the global hubness level. The cutting-edge technique and insights derived from our exploration into near-whole-brain layer-specific connectivity provide unparalleled understanding of the organization principles and underlying mechanisms governing communication between different brain regions.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9248311/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "37943791",
    "title": "Intensive whole-brain 7T MRI case study of volitional control of brain activity in deep absorptive meditation states.",
    "journal": "Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "WFZ Yang",
      "A Chowdhury",
      "M Bianciardi"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/cercor/bhad408",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6325267",
    "abstract": "Jhanas are profound states of mind achieved through advanced meditation, offering valuable insights into the nature of consciousness and tools to enhance well-being. Yet, its neurophenomenology remains limited due to methodological difficulties and the rarity of advanced meditation practitioners. We conducted a highly exploratory study to investigate the neurophenomenology of jhanas in an intensively sampled adept meditator case study (4 hr 7T fMRI collected in 27 sessions) who performed jhana meditation and rated specific aspects of experience immediately thereafter. Linear mixed models and correlations were used to examine relations among brain activity and jhana phenomenology. We identified distinctive patterns of brain activity in specific cortical, subcortical, brainstem, and cerebellar regions associated with jhana. Furthermore, we observed correlations between brain activity and phenomenological qualities of attention, jhanic qualities, and narrative processing, highlighting the distinct nature of jhanas compared to non-meditative states. Our study presents the most rigorous evidence yet that jhana practice deconstructs consciousness, offering unique insights into consciousness and significant implications for mental health and well-being.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6325267/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "38795357",
    "title": "Visuospatial processing in early brain-based visual impairment is associated with differential recruitment of dorsal and ventral visual streams.",
    "journal": "Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "Z Pamir",
      "CE Manley",
      "CM Bauer"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.ridd.2022.104364",
    "pmc_id": "PMC10331636",
    "abstract": "Visuospatial processing impairments are prevalent in individuals with cerebral visual impairment (CVI) and are typically ascribed to \"dorsal stream dysfunction\" (DSD). However, the contribution of other cortical regions, including early visual cortex (EVC), frontal cortex, or the ventral visual stream, to such impairments remains unknown. Thus, here, we examined fMRI activity in these regions, while individuals with CVI (and neurotypicals) performed a visual search task within a dynamic naturalistic scene. First, behavioral performance was measured with eye tracking. Participants were instructed to search and follow a walking human target. CVI participants took significantly longer to find the target, and their eye gaze patterns were less accurate and less precise. Second, we used the same task in the MRI scanner. Along the dorsal stream, activation was reduced in CVI participants, consistent with the proposed DSD in CVI. Intriguingly, however, visual areas along the ventral stream showed the complete opposite pattern, with greater activation in CVI participants. In contrast, we found no differences in either EVC or frontal cortex between groups. These results suggest that the impaired visuospatial processing abilities in CVI are associated with differential recruitment of the dorsal and ventral visual streams, likely resulting from impaired selective attention.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10331636/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "39086203",
    "title": "Inter- and intra-subject similarity in network functional connectivity across a full narrative movie.",
    "journal": "Human brain mapping",
    "year": "2024",
    "authors": [
      "LN Mochalski",
      "P Friedrich",
      "X Li"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1037/0022-3514.77.3.600",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3174820",
    "abstract": "Naturalistic paradigms, such as watching movies during functional magnetic resonance imaging, are thought to prompt the emotional and cognitive processes typically elicited in real life situations. Therefore, naturalistic viewing (NV) holds great potential for studying individual differences. Previous studies have primarily focused on using shorter movie clips, geared toward eliciting specific and often isolated emotions, while the potential behind using full narratives depicted in commercial movies as a proxy for real-life experiences has barely been explored. Here, we offer preliminary evidence that a full narrative movie (FNM), that is, a movie covering a complete narrative arc, can capture complex socio-affective dynamics and their links to individual differences. Using the studyforrest dataset, we investigated inter- and intra-subject similarity in network functional connectivity (NFC) of 14 meta-analytically defined networks across a full narrative, audio-visual movie split into eight consecutive movie segments. We characterized the movie segments by valence and arousal portrayed within the sequences, before utilizing a linear mixed model to analyze which factors explain inter- and intra-subject similarity. Our results show that the model best explaining inter-subject similarity comprised network, movie segment, valence and a movie segment by valence interaction. Intra-subject similarity was influenced significantly by the same factors and an additional three-way interaction between movie segment, valence and arousal. Overall, inter- and intra-subject similarity in NFC were sensitive to the ongoing narrative and emotions in the movie. We conclude that FNMs offer complex content and dynamics that might be particularly valuable for studying individual differences. Further characterization of movie features, such as the overarching narratives, that enhance individual differences is needed for advancing the potential of NV research.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3174820/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "36610109",
    "title": "Treatment-induced neural reorganization in aphasia is language-domain specific: Evidence from a large-scale fMRI study.",
    "journal": "Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "E Barbieri",
      "CK Thompson",
      "J Higgins"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1155/2017/8740353",
    "pmc_id": "PMC2580728",
    "abstract": "Studies investigating the effects of language intervention on the re-organization of language networks in chronic aphasia have resulted in mixed findings, likely related to-among other factors-the language function targeted during treatment. The present study investigated the effects of the type of treatment provided on neural reorganization. Seventy individuals with chronic stroke-induced aphasia, recruited from three research laboratories and meeting criteria for agrammatism, anomia or dysgraphia were assigned to either treatment (N = 51) or control (N = 19) groups. Participants in the treatment group received 12-weeks of language intervention targeting sentence comprehension/production, naming, or spelling. At baseline and post-testing, all participants performed an fMRI story comprehension task, with blocks of auditorily-presented stories alternated with blocks of reversed speech. Participants in the treatment, but not control, group significantly improved in the treated language domain. FMRI region-of-interest (ROI) analyses, conducted within regions that were either active (or homologous to active) regions in a group of 22 healthy participants on the story comprehension task, revealed a significant increase in activation from pre-to post-treatment in right-hemisphere homologues of these regions for participants in the sentence and spelling, but not naming, treatment groups, not predicted by left-hemisphere lesion size. For the sentence (but not the spelling) treatment group, activation changes within right-hemisphere homologues of language regions were positively associated with changes in measures of verb and sentence comprehension. These findings support previous research pointing to recruitment of right hemisphere tissue as a viable route for language recovery and suggest that sentence-level treatment may promote greater neuroplasticity on naturalistic, language comprehension tasks, compared to word-level treatment.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2580728/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "37395724",
    "title": "Large-scale neural dynamics in a shared low-dimensional state space reflect cognitive and attentional dynamics.",
    "journal": "eLife",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "H Song",
      "WM Shim",
      "MD Rosenberg"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119818",
    "pmc_id": "PMC10074161",
    "abstract": "Cognition and attention arise from the adaptive coordination of neural systems in response to external and internal demands. The low-dimensional latent subspace that underlies large-scale neural dynamics and the relationships of these dynamics to cognitive and attentional states, however, are unknown. We conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging as human participants performed attention tasks, watched comedy sitcom episodes and an educational documentary, and rested. Whole-brain dynamics traversed a common set of latent states that spanned canonical gradients of functional brain organization, with global desynchronization among functional networks modulating state transitions. Neural state dynamics were synchronized across people during engaging movie watching and aligned to narrative event structures. Neural state dynamics reflected attention fluctuations such that different states indicated engaged attention in task and naturalistic contexts, whereas a common state indicated attention lapses in both contexts. Together, these results demonstrate that traversals along large-scale gradients of human brain organization reflect cognitive and attentional dynamics.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10074161/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "37932104",
    "title": "Establishing the Roles of the Dorsal and Ventral Striatum in Humor Comprehension and Appreciation with fMRI.",
    "journal": "The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "M Prenger",
      "M Gilchrist",
      "K Van Hedger"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1109/42.906424",
    "pmc_id": "PMC2973972",
    "abstract": "Humor comprehension (i.e., getting a joke) and humor appreciation (i.e., enjoying a joke) are distinct, cognitively complex processes. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) investigations have identified several key cortical regions but have overlooked subcortical structures that have theoretical importance in humor processing. The dorsal striatum (DS) contributes to working memory, ambiguity processing, and cognitive flexibility, cognitive functions that are required to accurately recognize humorous stimuli. The ventral striatum (VS) is critical in reward processing and enjoyment. We hypothesized that the DS and VS play important roles in humor comprehension and appreciation, respectively. We investigated the engagement of these regions in these distinct processes using fMRI. Twenty-six healthy young male and female human adults completed two humor-elicitation tasks during a 3 tesla fMRI scan consisting of a traditional behavior-based joke task and a naturalistic audiovisual sitcom paradigm (i.e., Seinfeld viewing task). Across both humor-elicitation methods, whole-brain analyses revealed cortical activation in the inferior frontal gyrus, the middle frontal gyrus, and the middle temporal gyrus for humor comprehension, and the temporal cortex for humor appreciation. Additionally, with region of interest analyses, we specifically examined whether DS and VS activation correlated with these processes. Across both tasks, we demonstrated that humor comprehension implicates both the DS and the VS, whereas humor appreciation only engages the VS. These results establish the role of the DS in humor comprehension, which has been previously overlooked, and emphasize the role of the VS in humor processing more generally.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Humorous stimuli are processed by the brain in at least two distinct stages. First, humor comprehension involves understanding humorous intent through cognitive and problem-solving mechanisms. Second, humor appreciation involves enjoyment, mirth, and laughter in response to a joke. The roles of smaller subcortical brain regions in humor processing, such as the DS and VS, have been overlooked in previous investigations. However, these regions are involved in functions that support humor comprehension (e.g., working memory ambiguity resolution, and cognitive flexibility) and humor appreciation (e.g., reward processing, pleasure, and enjoyment). In this study, we used neuroimaging to demonstrate that the DS and VS play important roles in humor comprehension and appreciation, respectively, across two different humor-elicitation tasks.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2973972/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "37037065",
    "title": "Entropy, complexity, and maturity in children's neural responses to naturalistic video lessons.",
    "journal": "Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "M Amalric",
      "JF Cantlon"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1007/s10439-012-0668-3",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6549512",
    "abstract": "Temporal characteristics of neural signals are often overlooked in traditional fMRI developmental studies but are critical to studying brain functions in ecologically valid settings. In the present study, we explore the temporal properties of children's neural responses during naturalistic mathematics and grammar tasks. To do so, we introduce a novel measure in developmental fMRI: neural entropy, which indicates temporal complexity of BOLD signals. We show that temporal patterns of neural activity have lower complexity and greater variability in children than in adults in the association cortex but not in the sensory-motor cortex. We also show that neural entropy is associated with both child-adult similarity in functional connectivity and neural synchrony, and that neural entropy increases with the size of functionally connected networks in the association cortex. In addition, neural entropy increases with functional maturity (i.e., child-adult neural synchrony) in content-specific regions. These exploratory findings suggest the hypothesis that neural entropy indexes the increasing breadth and diversity of neural processes available to children for analyzing mathematical information over development.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6549512/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "40799707",
    "title": "Synchronous high-amplitude co-fluctuations of functional brain networks during movie-watching.",
    "journal": "Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "JC Tanner",
      "J Faskowitz",
      "L Byrge"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1037/0033-2909.133.2.273",
    "pmc_id": "PMC2852534",
    "abstract": "Recent studies have shown that functional connectivity can be decomposed into its exact frame-wise contributions, revealing short-lived, infrequent, and high-amplitude time points referred to as \"events.\" Events contribute disproportionately to the time-averaged connectivity pattern, improve identifiability and brain-behavior associations, and differences in their expression have been linked to endogenous hormonal fluctuations and autism. Here, we explore the characteristics of events while subjects watch movies. Using two independently-acquired imaging datasets in which participants passively watched movies, we find that events synchronize across individuals and based on the level of synchronization, can be categorized into three distinct classes: those that synchronize at the boundaries between movies, those that synchronize during movies, and those that do not synchronize at all. We find that boundary events, compared to the other categories, exhibit greater amplitude, distinct co-fluctuation patterns, and temporal propagation. We show that underlying boundary events1 is a specific mode of co-fluctuation involving the activation of control and salience systems alongside the deactivation of visual systems. Events that synchronize during the movie, on the other hand, display a pattern of co-fluctuation that is time-locked to the movie stimulus. Finally, we found that subjects' time-varying brain networks are most similar to one another during these synchronous events.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2852534/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "37639901",
    "title": "Accumbal-thalamic connectivity and associated glutamate alterations in human cocaine craving: A state-dependent rs-fMRI and 1H-MRS study.",
    "journal": "NeuroImage. Clinical",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "EJE Engeli",
      "AG Russo",
      "S Ponticorvo"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1002/nbm.3875",
    "pmc_id": "PMC4814115",
    "abstract": "Craving is a core symptom of cocaine use disorder and a major factor for relapse risk. To date, there is no pharmacological therapy to treat this disease or at least to alleviate cocaine craving as a core symptom. In animal models, impaired prefrontal-striatal signalling leading to altered glutamate release in the nucleus accumbens appear to be the prerequisite for cocaine-seeking. Thus, those network and metabolic changes may constitute the underlying mechanisms for cocaine craving and provide a potential treatment target. In humans, there is recent evidence for corresponding glutamatergic alterations in the nucleus accumbens, however, the underlying network disturbances that lead to this glutamate imbalance remain unknown. In this state-dependent randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blinded, cross-over multimodal study, resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging in combination with small-voxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (voxel size: 9.4 × 18.8 × 8.4 mm3) was applied to assess network-level and associated neurometabolic changes during a non-craving and a craving state, induced by a custom-made cocaine-cue film, in 18 individuals with cocaine use disorder and 23 healthy individuals. Additionally, we assessed the potential impact of a short-term challenge of N-acetylcysteine, known to normalize disturbed glutamate homeostasis and to thereby reduce cocaine-seeking in animal models of addiction, compared to a placebo. We found increased functional connectivity between the nucleus accumbens and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during the cue-induced craving state. However, those changes were not linked to alterations in accumbal glutamate levels. Whereas we additionally found increased functional connectivity between the nucleus accumbens and a midline part of the thalamus during the cue-induced craving state. Furthermore, obsessive thinking about cocaine and the actual intensity of cocaine use were predictive of cue-induced functional connectivity changes between the nucleus accumbens and the thalamus. Finally, the increase in accumbal-thalamic connectivity was also coupled with craving-related glutamate rise in the nucleus accumbens. Yet, N-acetylcysteine had no impact on craving-related changes in functional connectivity. Together, these results suggest that connectivity changes within the fronto-accumbal-thalamic loop, in conjunction with impaired glutamatergic transmission, underlie cocaine craving and related clinical symptoms, pinpointing the thalamus as a crucial hub for cocaine craving in humans.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4814115/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "36599681",
    "title": "Deeper Than You Think: Partisanship-Dependent Brain Responses in Early Sensory and Motor Brain Regions.",
    "journal": "The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "N Katabi",
      "H Simon",
      "S Yakim"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1177/0956797616682029",
    "pmc_id": "PMC5348256",
    "abstract": "Recent political polarization has illustrated how individuals with opposing political views often experience ongoing events in markedly different ways. In this study, we explored the neural mechanisms underpinning this phenomenon. We conducted fMRI scanning of 34 right- and left-wing participants (45% females) watching political videos (e.g., campaign ads and political speeches) just before the elections in Israel. As expected, we observed significant differences between left- and right-wing participants in their interpretation of the videos' content. Furthermore, neuroimaging results revealed partisanship-dependent differences in activation and synchronization in higher-order regions. Surprisingly, such differences were also revealed in early sensory, motor, and somatosensory regions. We found that the political content synchronized the responses of primary visual and auditory cortices in a partisanship-dependent manner. Moreover, right-wing (and not left-wing) individuals' sensorimotor cortex was involved in processing right-wing (and not left-wing) political content. These differences were pronounced to the extent that we could predict political orientation from the early brain-response alone. Importantly, no such differences were found with respect to neutral content. Therefore, these results uncover more fundamental neural mechanisms underlying processes of political polarization.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The political sphere has become highly polarized in recent years. Would it be possible to identify the neural mechanisms underpinning such processes? In our study, left- and right-wing participants were scanned in fMRI while watching political video clips just before the elections in Israel. We found that political content was potent in synchronizing the brain responses of individuals holding similar views. This was far more pronounced in individuals holding right-wing views. Moreover, partisan-dependent differences in neural responses were identified already in early sensory, somatosensory, and motor regions, and only for political content. These results suggest that individuals' political views shape their neural responses at a very basic level.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5348256/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "37385988",
    "title": "Predictive neural representations of naturalistic dynamic input.",
    "journal": "Nature communications",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "IEJ de Vries",
      "MF Wurm"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/cercor/bhx179",
    "pmc_id": "PMC10310743",
    "abstract": "Adaptive behavior such as social interaction requires our brain to predict unfolding external dynamics. While theories assume such dynamic prediction, empirical evidence is limited to static snapshots and indirect consequences of predictions. We present a dynamic extension to representational similarity analysis that uses temporally variable models to capture neural representations of unfolding events. We applied this approach to source-reconstructed magnetoencephalography (MEG) data of healthy human subjects and demonstrate both lagged and predictive neural representations of observed actions. Predictive representations exhibit a hierarchical pattern, such that high-level abstract stimulus features are predicted earlier in time, while low-level visual features are predicted closer in time to the actual sensory input. By quantifying the temporal forecast window of the brain, this approach allows investigating predictive processing of our dynamic world. It can be applied to other naturalistic stimuli (e.g., film, soundscapes, music, motor planning/execution, social interaction) and any biosignal with high temporal resolution.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10310743/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "36752641",
    "title": "Neural unscrambling of temporal information during a nonlinear narrative.",
    "journal": "Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "C Grall",
      "J Equita",
      "ES Finn"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1101/2022.05.24.493338",
    "pmc_id": "PMC7959111",
    "abstract": "Although we must experience our lives chronologically, storytellers often manipulate the order in which they relay events. How the brain processes temporal information while encoding a nonlinear narrative remains unclear. Here, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging during movie watching to investigate which brain regions are sensitive to information about time in a narrative and test whether the representation of temporal context across a narrative is more influenced by the order in which events are presented or their underlying chronological sequence. Results indicate that medial parietal regions are sensitive to cued jumps through time over and above other changes in context (i.e., location). Moreover, when processing non-chronological narrative information, the precuneus and posterior cingulate engage in on-the-fly temporal unscrambling to represent information chronologically. Specifically, days that are closer together in chronological time are represented more similarly regardless of when they are presented in the movie, and this representation is consistent across participants. Additional analyses reveal a strong spatial signature associated with higher magnitude jumps through time. These findings are consistent with prior theorizing on medial parietal regions as central to maintaining and updating narrative situation models, and suggest the priority of chronological information when encoding narrative events.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7959111/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "37697742",
    "title": "Impact of inner ear malformation and cochlear nerve deficiency on the development of auditory-language network in children with profound sensorineural hearing loss.",
    "journal": "eLife",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "Y Wang",
      "M Jiang",
      "Y Zhu"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1016/j.ijporl.2017.03.006",
    "pmc_id": "PMC2918278",
    "abstract": "Profound congenital sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) prevents children from developing spoken language. Cochlear implantation and auditory brainstem implantation can provide partial hearing sensation, but language development outcomes can vary, particularly for patients with inner ear malformations and/or cochlear nerve deficiency (IEM&CND). Currently, the peripheral auditory structure is evaluated through visual inspection of clinical imaging, but this method is insufficient for surgical planning and prognosis. The central auditory pathway is also challenging to examine in vivo due to its delicate subcortical structures. Previous attempts to locate subcortical auditory nuclei using fMRI responses to sounds are not applicable to patients with profound hearing loss as no auditory brainstem responses can be detected in these individuals, making it impossible to capture corresponding blood oxygen signals in fMRI. In this study, we developed a new pipeline for mapping the auditory pathway using structural and diffusional MRI. We used a fixel-based approach to investigate the structural development of the auditory-language network for profound SNHL children with normal peripheral structure and those with IEM&CND under 6 years old. Our findings indicate that the language pathway is more sensitive to peripheral auditory condition than the central auditory pathway, highlighting the importance of early intervention for profound SNHL children to provide timely speech inputs. We also propose a comprehensive pre-surgical evaluation extending from the cochlea to the auditory-language network, showing significant correlations between age, gender, Cn.VIII median contrast value, and the language network with post-implant qualitative outcomes.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2918278/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "36630962",
    "title": "Temporal continuity shapes visual responses of macaque face patch neurons.",
    "journal": "Neuron",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "BE Russ",
      "KW Koyano",
      "J Day-Cooney"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1162/089976604774201631",
    "pmc_id": "PMC6743332",
    "abstract": "Macaque inferior temporal cortex neurons respond selectively to complex visual images, with recent work showing that they are also entrained reliably by the evolving content of natural movies. To what extent does temporal continuity itself shape the responses of high-level visual neurons? We addressed this question by measuring how cells in face-selective regions of the macaque visual cortex were affected by the manipulation of a movie's temporal structure. Sampling a 5-min movie at 1 s intervals, we measured neural responses to randomized, brief stimuli of different lengths, ranging from 800 ms dynamic movie snippets to 100 ms static frames. We found that the disruption of temporal continuity strongly altered neural response profiles, particularly in the early response period after stimulus onset. The results suggest that models of visual system function based on discrete and randomized visual presentations may not translate well to the brain's natural modes of operation.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6743332/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "37553449",
    "title": "The abilities of movie-watching functional connectivity in individual identifications and individualized predictions.",
    "journal": "Brain imaging and behavior",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "Y Guan",
      "H Ma",
      "J Liu"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1093/cercor/bhaa180",
    "pmc_id": "8376216",
    "abstract": "Quite a few studies have been performed based on movie-watching functional connectivity (FC). As compared to its resting-state counterpart, however, there is still much to know about its abilities in individual identifications and individualized predictions. To pave the way for appropriate usage of movie-watching FC, we systemically evaluated the minimum number of time points, as well as the exact functional networks, supporting individual identifications and individualized predictions of apparent traits based on it. We performed the study based on the 7T movie-watching fMRI data included in the HCP S1200 Release, and took IQ as the test case for the prediction analyses. The results indicate that movie-watching FC based on only 15 time points can support successful individual identifications (99.47%), and the connectivity contributed more to identifications were much associated with higher-order cognitive processes (the secondary visual network, the frontoparietal network and the posterior multimodal network). For individualized predictions of IQ, it was found that successful predictions necessitated 60 time points (predicted vs. actual IQ correlation significant at P < 0.05, based on 5,000 permutations), and the prediction accuracy increased logarithmically with the number of time points used for connectivity calculation. Furthermore, the connectivity that contributed more to individual identifications exhibited the strongest prediction ability. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that movie-watching FC can capture rich information about human brain function, and its ability in individualized predictions depends heavily on the length of fMRI scans.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8376216/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "36935083",
    "title": "The effects of propofol anaesthesia on molecular-enriched networks during resting-state and naturalistic listening.",
    "journal": "NeuroImage",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "T Lawn",
      "D Martins",
      "O O'Daly"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1038/NATURE12077",
    "pmc_id": "PMC3670751",
    "abstract": "Placing a patient in a state of anaesthesia is crucial for modern surgical practice. However, the mechanisms by which anaesthetic drugs, such as propofol, impart their effects on consciousness remain poorly understood. Propofol potentiates GABAergic transmission, which purportedly has direct actions on cortex as well as indirect actions via ascending neuromodulatory systems. Functional imaging studies to date have been limited in their ability to unravel how these effects on neurotransmission impact the system-level dynamics of the brain. Here, we leveraged advances in multi-modal imaging, Receptor-Enriched Analysis of functional Connectivity by Targets (REACT), to investigate how different levels of propofol-induced sedation alter neurotransmission-related functional connectivity (FC), both at rest and when individuals are exposed to naturalistic auditory stimulation. Propofol increased GABA-A- and noradrenaline transporter-enriched FC within occipital and somatosensory regions respectively. Additionally, during auditory stimulation, the network related to the dopamine transporter showed reduced FC within bilateral regions of temporal and mid/posterior cingulate cortices, with the right temporal cluster showing an interaction between auditory stimulation and level of consciousness. In bringing together these micro- and macro-scale systems, we provide support for both direct GABAergic and indirect noradrenergic and dopaminergic-related network changes under propofol sedation. Further, we delineate a cognition-related reconfiguration of the dopaminergic network, highlighting the utility of REACT to explore the molecular substrates of consciousness and cognition.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3670751/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  },
  {
    "pmid": "37463907",
    "title": "Phonemic segmentation of narrative speech in human cerebral cortex.",
    "journal": "Nature communications",
    "year": "2023",
    "authors": [
      "XL Gong",
      "AG Huth",
      "F Deniz"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1088/0954-898X_15_2_002",
    "pmc_id": "PMC2774390",
    "abstract": "Speech processing requires extracting meaning from acoustic patterns using a set of intermediate representations based on a dynamic segmentation of the speech stream. Using whole brain mapping obtained in fMRI, we investigate the locus of cortical phonemic processing not only for single phonemes but also for short combinations made of diphones and triphones. We find that phonemic processing areas are much larger than previously described: they include not only the classical areas in the dorsal superior temporal gyrus but also a larger region in the lateral temporal cortex where diphone features are best represented. These identified phonemic regions overlap with the lexical retrieval region, but we show that short word retrieval is not sufficient to explain the observed responses to diphones. Behavioral studies have shown that phonemic processing and lexical retrieval are intertwined. Here, we also have identified candidate regions within the speech cortical network where this joint processing occurs.",
    "pdf_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2774390/pdf/",
    "has_pmc": true
  }
]