Naturalistic viewing increases individual identifiability based on connectivity within functional brain networks

• Published in: NeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.) Vol. 273; p. 120083
• Main Authors: Kröll, Jean-Philippe, Friedrich, Patrick, Li, Xuan, Patil, Kaustubh R., Mochalski, Lisa, Waite, Laura, Qian, Xing, Chee, Michael WL, Zhou, Juan Helen, Eickhoff, Simon, Weis, Susanne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.06.2023; Elsevier Limited; Elsevier
• Subjects: Brain - physiology; Brain architecture; Brain Mapping - methods; Brain research; Cognitive ability; Functional morphology; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Motion Pictures; Network management systems; Neural networks; Neural Pathways - physiology; Research data management; Singapore
• ISSN: 1053-8119; 1095-9572; 1095-9572
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120083

•We assess the effect of naturalistic viewing on network functional connectivity.•Naturalistic viewing increases identifiability over RS in several networks.•Movies including a narrative are more distinct from RS.•Naturalistic viewing can evoke individually unique patterns in network-FC.•Effects are dependent on network-stimulus combination. Naturalistic viewing (NV) is currently considered a promising paradigm for studying individual differences in functional brain organization. While whole brain functional connectivity (FC) under NV has been relatively well characterized, so far little work has been done on a network level. Here, we extend current knowledge by characterizing the influence of NV on FC in fourteen meta-analytically derived brain networks considering three different movie stimuli in comparison to resting-state (RS). We show that NV increases identifiability of individuals over RS based on functional connectivity in certain, but not all networks. Furthermore, movie stimuli including a narrative appear more distinct from RS. In addition, we assess individual variability in network FC by comparing within- and between-subject similarity during NV and RS. We show that NV can evoke individually distinct NFC patterns by increasing inter-subject variability while retaining within-subject similarity. Crucially, our results highlight that this effect is not observable across all networks, but rather dependent on the network-stimulus combination. Our results confirm that NV can improve the detection of individual differences over RS and underline the importance of selecting the appropriate combination of movie and cognitive network for the research question at hand.