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101 Dalmatians: a multimodal naturalistic fMRI dataset in typical development and congenital sensory loss

  • 0MoMiLab, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy.
Scientific Data +

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November 18, 2025

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November 18, 2025

View abstract on PubMed

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

This study introduces a new functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) dataset of 50 participants, including those with congenital sensory loss, watching movie stimuli. This resource aids research into sensory deprivation

Area Of Science

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science
  • Neuroimaging

Background

  • Neuroscience increasingly uses naturalistic stimuli (movies, narratives) to study real-world cognition.
  • Understanding sensory deprivation's impact on brain function is crucial for developmental neuroscience.

Purpose Of The Study

  • To present a novel functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) dataset for studying sensory processing and neuroplasticity.
  • To investigate the effects of congenital sensory loss (blindness, deafness) on brain organization using audiovisual stimuli.

Main Methods

  • Acquired fMRI data from 50 participants (typical development, congenital blindness, congenital deafness) exposed to movie stimuli (101 Dalmatians).
  • Incorporated computational auditory/visual descriptors (VGGish, VGG-19) and GPT-4 semantic embeddings.
  • Annotated movie events and content, ensuring data standardization in Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) format.
  • Validated fMRI data quality using Inter-Subject Correlation (ISC).

Main Results

  • The dataset enables analysis of brain functional organization and neuroplasticity in individuals with sensory impairments.
  • Inter-Subject Correlation (ISC) confirmed the robustness of the fMRI data for cross-participant comparisons.

Conclusions

  • The 101 Dalmatians dataset is a valuable resource for exploring how sensory experiences, or their absence, shape brain development and function.
  • Facilitates research on sensory deprivation, neuroplasticity, and the integration of sensory information in the human brain.