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

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. The neuroscientists scanned the brains of 176 young adults as they watched 60 minutes of film clips, using data from the Human Connectome Project. This innovative study aimed to investigate how brain networks respond to complex auditory and visual stimuli by showing movies during functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanning.

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 provides a more comprehensive view of brain function during natural tasks. “There is an emerging approach in neuroscience to look at brain networks under more naturalistic conditions. This is a new approach that reveals something different from conventional 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” and most active during transitions between different clips. Many of these networks have been seen before, but this technique provides a more accurate definition of where the networks are located. “Different regions compete with each other to process specific functions, so if you map each function separately you may end up with a slightly larger network because it is not limited by other processes,” explains Reza Rajimehr, the paper’s first author , out. and a neuroscientist at MIT. “But here, because all areas are considered together, we can define more precise boundaries between different networks.”

The fMRI analysis showed how different brain networks light up when participants watch 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 identified networks were located in sensory areas such as the visual and auditory cortex, consistent with their specific sensory functions.

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

The research also revealed how different executive networks are prioritized during easy versus hard-to-follow scenes, suggesting that the brain adjusts its activity based on the difficulty of the scenes. In easy-to-understand scenes, specialized areas such as language processing areas predominate, especially during clear dialogue. “It seems that when the movie scenes are quite easy to understand, for example when a clear conversation is taking place, 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 executive control domains.”

When the content of the film was difficult to follow or ambiguous, there was increased activity in the brain areas that control executive function, suggesting that these areas rely on cognitive pressure. The researchers noted that these control networks appear to have a “push-pull” relationship with networks that process specific features such as faces or actions. “Executive control domains are often active during difficult tasks when cognitive load is high,” Rajimehr explains, indicating that in complex scenes the brain prioritizes these areas at the expense of specific processing zones.

The researchers hope that their new map will serve as a starting point for further research into what each of these networks does in the brain. “Now we study more deeply how 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,” Rajimehr said.

Because the analyzes in this paper were 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 between individuals with developmental or psychiatric disorders. “In future studies, we can look at the maps of individual subjects, which will allow us to relate each subject’s individualized map to that subject’s behavioral profile,” Rajimehr said.

“These types of experiments are really about generating hypotheses about how the cerebral cortex is functionally organized,” Desimone said. “Networks that emerge while watching movies now need to be followed up with more specific experiments to test the hypotheses. It gives us new insight into 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 University of Cambridge’s MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, and a Cambridge Trust grant.

Sources: Mirage News, Milenio, Infobae, Science Daily

This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq