Act natural: Functional connectivity from naturalistic stimuli fMRI outperforms resting-state in predicting brain activity

Gal, Shachar; Coldham, Yael; Tik, Niv; Bernstein‐Eliav, Michal; Tavor, Ido

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119359

Cited by 24 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Previous studies have indicated movie-watching elicits functional connectivity that is less widespread and reduced in magnitude compared to resting-state 38 – 40 , likely due to stimulus driven responses disrupting spontaneous or intrinsic brain activity. However, connectivity from movie-watching may be more predictive of function in some brain regions including visual cortex 32 , 41 , and our results are consistent with this conclusion. Movie-watching may also offer other advantages such as improved reliability of connectivity estimates 39 , 42 , reproducibility of brain activity across participants and data acquisition sites 43 , and suitability for studying developmental populations 44 , 45 .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

An evaluation of how connectopic mapping reveals visual field maps in V1

Watson

Andrews

2022

Sci Rep

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Functional gradients, in which response properties change gradually across the cortical surface, have been proposed as a key organising principle of the brain. However, the presence of these gradients remains undetermined in many brain regions. Resting-state neuroimaging studies have suggested these gradients can be reconstructed from patterns of functional connectivity. Here we investigate the accuracy of these reconstructions and establish whether it is connectivity or the functional properties within a region that determine these “connectopic maps”. Different manifold learning techniques were used to recover visual field maps while participants were at rest or engaged in natural viewing. We benchmarked these reconstructions against maps measured by traditional visual field mapping. We report an initial exploratory experiment of a publicly available naturalistic imaging dataset, followed by a preregistered replication using larger resting-state and naturalistic imaging datasets from the Human Connectome Project. Connectopic mapping accurately predicted visual field maps in primary visual cortex, with better predictions for eccentricity than polar angle maps. Non-linear manifold learning methods outperformed simpler linear embeddings. We also found more accurate predictions during natural viewing compared to resting-state. Varying the source of the connectivity estimates had minimal impact on the connectopic maps, suggesting the key factor is the functional topography within a brain region. The application of these standardised methods for connectopic mapping will allow the discovery of functional gradients across the brain. Protocol registration The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 19 April 2022. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19771717.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

An evaluation of how connectopic mapping reveals visual field maps in V1

Watson

Andrews

2022

Sci Rep

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“…Our present research opens several new avenues of inquiry. First, there is suggestive evidence that, compared to traditional laboratory tasks (such as those used in the ABCD study), naturalistic paradigms may yield neurocognitive patterns that better resemble those likely to be evoked in real-world settings (83). Consequently, replication and extension of our findings in studies featuring a movie watching paradigm, for instance, could yield further insights into the results herein documented.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological Resilience in Adolescence as a function of Genetic Risk for Major Depressive Disorder and Alzheimer’s Disease

Petrican

Fornito

2022

Preprint

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Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Alzheimer's Disease (AD) are two pathologies linked to prior stress exposure and altered neurodevelopmental trajectories. As a putative antecedent to AD, MDD could be key to understanding the neurobiological changes that precede the clinical onset of AD by decades. To test this hypothesis, we used longitudinal data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development study (Ntotal = 980, 470 females) and investigated overlapping connectomic, transcriptomic, and chemoarchitectural correlates of adjustment to stressors (i.e., resilience) among adolescents at genetic risk for AD and MDD, respectively. The potential for perinatal adversity to directly and/or indirectly, via accelerated biological ageing, foster resilience (i.e., "inoculation" effects) was also probed. We identified two distinguishable neurodevelopmental profiles predictive of resilience among MDD-vulnerable adolescents. One profile, expressed among the fastest developing youth, overlapped with areas of greater dopamine receptor density and reflected the maturational refinement of the inhibitory control architecture. The second profile distinguished resilient MDD-prone youth from psychologically vulnerable adolescents genetically predisposed towards AD. This profile, associated with elevated GABA, relative to glutamate, receptor density, captured the longitudinal refinement and increasing context specificity of incentive-related brain activations. Its transcriptomic signature implied that poorer resilience among AD-prone youth may be associated with greater expression of MDD-relevant genes. Our findings are compatible with the proposed role of MDD as a precursor to AD and underscore the pivotal contribution of incentive processing to this relationship. They further speak to the key neuromodulatory role of DA-gonadal hormone interactions in fostering resilience in adolescence.

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“…The limitations of our present research open several new avenues of enquiry. First, the ABCD study uses traditional laboratory tasks, which, in comparison with naturalistic paradigms, tend to be less accurate in mimicking the neurocognitive patterns evoked in real-world settings ( Gal et al, 2022 , Jovanovic et al, 2022 ). Consequently, replication and extension of our findings in studies featuring a movie watching paradigm, for instance, could yield further insights into the results herein documented.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%