Individual Differences of Cortical and Subcortical Emotion-Informed Functional Gradients

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Psychology

Background:

• Investigating the link between brain activity, emotional experiences, and individual differences is crucial for understanding human cognition.
• Functional gradients offer a novel approach to map cortical organization, with film fMRI showing promise for brain fingerprinting.
• Existing research highlights differences in brain fingerprinting between rest and film fMRI, prompting further exploration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the relationship between individual differences (state anxiety, openness) and brain activity during emotional scene processing using functional gradients.
• To introduce a novel framework for computing emotion-informed functional gradients by selecting film frames based on emotional annotations.
• To evaluate the predictive power of these emotion-informed gradients for individual differences and their relationship with inter-subject variability.

Main Methods:

• Utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during film viewing to capture brain activity.
• Developed an exploratory framework to compute emotion-informed functional gradients using emotionally annotated film frames.
• Analyzed inter-subject variability and employed gradients to predict state anxiety and openness scores.

Main Results:

• Emotion-informed functional gradients showed the highest predictability for state anxiety in negative valence, medium-high arousal scenes.
• State anxiety predictability was negatively correlated with inter-subject variability, while openness predictability was positively correlated in low arousal scenes.
• Findings suggest that emotional experiences influence macroscale brain organization and that frame selection can isolate subject-specific information.

Conclusions:

• Emotion-informed functional gradients derived from film fMRI can effectively capture and predict individual differences.
• The proposed framework enhances the disentanglement of individual differences by leveraging emotional content, expanding on brain fingerprinting concepts.
• Tailoring fMRI paradigms (constrained vs. unconstrained) based on the specific individual difference of interest can optimize the revelation of brain function properties.