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    • A new study shows what happens to your brain when you watch movies
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    A new study shows what happens to your brain when you watch movies

    Online Niel Posted on

    Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created the most detailed functional map of the brain’s cerebral cortex to date, as reported in the journal Neuron. Neuroscientists scanned the brains of 176 young adults while they watched movie clips for 60 minutes, using data from the Human Connectome Project. This groundbreaking study aimed to investigate how brain networks respond to complex auditory and visual stimuli by screening movies during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

    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 reveals a more comprehensive picture of brain function during natural pregnancy. “There is an emerging approach in neuroscience to analyze brain networks under more naturalistic conditions. This is a new approach that reveals something different from conventional neuroimaging approaches,” said Desimone.

    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” who were most active during transitions between different clips. Many of these networks have been seen before, but this technique provides a more precise definition of where the networks are. “Different regions compete with each other to process specific features, so when you map each feature in isolation, you can get a slightly larger network because it’s not constrained by other processes,” explained Reza Rajimehr, first author of the paper. and a neuroscientist at MIT. “But here, because all areas are considered together, we are able to define more precise boundaries between different networks.”

    The fMRI analysis showed how different brain networks light up when participants watched short clips from a range of independent and Hollywood films, including ‘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 behave. Some of the networks identified 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, along with networks associated with the recognition of human faces, movement, places, and social interactions. The research team found that different brain networks were involved in processing scenes with people, inanimate objects, actions and dialogue, revealing that the brain uses specific networks for these elements.

    The study also revealed how different executive networks are prioritized during easy versus difficult scenes to watch, suggesting that the brain adapts its activity based on the difficulty of the scenes. In scenes that are easy to understand, specialized regions such as language processing areas predominate, especially during clear dialogue. “It seems that when the movie scenes are quite easy to understand, for example if there is a clear conversation, the language areas are active,” Rajimehr said. “But in situations where there is a complex scene involving context, semantics and ambiguity in the meaning of the scene, more cognitive effort is required and so the brain switches to using general areas of executive control.”

    When the film’s content was difficult to follow or ambiguous, there was increased activity in the brain’s executive control regions, indicating a reliance on these areas under cognitive pressure. 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 the cognitive load is high,” Rajimehr explained, indicating that in complex scenes, the brain prioritizes these areas over specific processing areas.

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

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

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

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

    Sources: Mirage News, Milenio, Infobae, Science Daily

    This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq



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