New study shows what happens to your brain when you watch movies

As reported in the journal Neuron, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created the most detailed functional map to date of the brain’s cerebral cortex. Using data from the Human Connectome Project, neuroscientists scanned the brains of 176 young adults while they watched movie clips for 60 minutes. This innovative study aimed to investigate how brain networks respond to complex auditory and visual stimuli by scanning movies during a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scan.

The research team, led by Robert Desimone, director of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and including John Duncan, used a new approach that revealed a more comprehensive picture of brain function during natural tasks. “A new approach is emerging in neuroscience to look at brain networks under more natural conditions. This is a new approach that reveals something different from traditional approaches in neuroimaging,” Desimone said.

Using a machine learning algorithm to analyze the activity patterns of each brain region, the researchers identified 24 brain networks associated with specific aspects of sensory or cognitive processing. These networks included those involved in “executive control” that were most active during transitions between different clips. Many of these networks have been seen before, but this technique provides a more precise description of where the networks are located. “Different regions compete with each other to process certain features, so when you map each function separately, you can end up with a slightly larger network because it’s not constrained by other processes,” said Reza Rajimehr, first author of the paper. and a neuroscientist at MIT. “But since all areas are considered together here, we can define more precise boundaries between different networks.”

FMRI analysis showed how different brain networks lit up when participants watched short clips from a variety of independent and Hollywood movies, such as “Inception,” “The Social Network” and “Home Alone.” The researchers calculated the average brain activity of all participants and used machine learning techniques to identify functional networks related to how we perceive stimuli and how we behave. Some of the identified networks were located in sensory areas such as visual and auditory cortices, consistent with their specific sensory functions.

Within the social processing network, regions specific to the processing of social information about faces and bodies were identified, as well as networks associated with recognizing human faces, movements, locations, and social interactions. The research team found that different brain networks are involved in processing scenes involving people, inanimate objects, actions, and dialogue, and that the brain uses specialized networks for these elements.

The study also revealed how different executive networks prioritized during easy and hard-to-follow scenes; This suggests that the brain adapts its activity according to the difficulty of the scenes. In easy-to-understand scenes, especially during clear dialogue, specialized regions such as language processing areas dominate. “It appears that language areas are activated when movie scenes are fairly easy to understand, such as when there is clear speech,” Rajimehr said. “But in situations where there is a complex scene with uncertainty in the context, semantics, and meaning of the scene, more cognitive effort is required, and so the brain switches to using general executive control areas.”

When the content of the movie was difficult to follow or unclear, there was increased activity in executive control regions of the brain, indicating that these areas are relied upon under cognitive stress. The researchers observed that these control networks appear to have a “push-pull” relationship with networks that process specific features, such as faces or actions. “Executive control areas are often active in difficult tasks when cognitive load is high,” Rajimehr said, noting that in complex scenes the brain prioritizes these areas to the detriment of certain processing regions.

The researchers hope their new map will serve as a starting point for further research into what each of these networks does in the brain. “We are now examining more deeply how the specific content in each film frame drives these networks—for example, its semantic and social context, or the relationship between people and the background scene,” Rajimehr said. he said.

Because the analyzes in this article are based on average brain activities, the researchers suggest that future research could investigate how brain network function differs between individuals, between individuals of different ages, or among individuals with developmental or psychiatric disorders. “In future studies, we could look at individual subjects’ maps, which would allow us to correlate each subject’s personalized map with that subject’s behavioral profile,” Rajimehr said.

“This type of experiment is actually about generating hypotheses about how the cerebral cortex is functionally organized,” Desimone said. “The networks that emerge during movie viewing now need to be followed up with more specific experiments to test the hypotheses. This gives us a new perspective on the functioning of the entire cortex during a more natural task than simply sitting at rest.”

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The research was funded by the McGovern Institute, the Iran Council for Cognitive Science and Technology, the University of Cambridge MRC Cognitive and Brain Sciences Unit and a Cambridge Trust fellowship.

Sources: Mirage News, Milenio, Infobae, Science Daily

This article was written in collaboration with prolific artificial intelligence company Alchemiq.