title: Spontaneously Emerging Patterns in Human Visual Cortex Reflect Responses to Naturalistic Sensory Stimuli.
abstract: In the absence of stimulus or task, the cortex spontaneously generates rich and consistent functional connectivity patterns (termed resting state networks) which are evident even within individual cortical areas. We and others have previously hypothesized that habitual cortical network activations during daily life contribute to the shaping of these connectivity patterns. Here we tested this hypothesis by comparing, using blood oxygen level-dependent-functional magnetic resonance imaging, the connectivity patterns that spontaneously emerge during rest in retinotopic visual areas to the patterns generated by naturalistic visual stimuli (repeated movie segments). These were then compared with connectivity patterns produced by more standard retinotopic mapping stimuli (polar and eccentricity mapping). Our results reveal that the movie-driven patterns were significantly more similar to the spontaneously emerging patterns, compared with the connectivity patterns of either eccentricity or polar mapping stimuli. Intentional visual imagery of naturalistic stimuli was unlikely to underlie these results, since they were duplicated when participants were engaged in an auditory task. Our results suggest that the connectivity patterns that appear during rest better reflect naturalistic activations rather than controlled, artificially designed stimuli. The results are compatible with the hypothesis that the spontaneous connectivity patterns in human retinotopic areas reflect the statistics of cortical coactivations during natural vision.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
authors.forename: Meytal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wilf
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Strappini
authors.affiliation: The Edmund and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: Tal
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Golan
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
authors.forename: Avital
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hahamy
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
authors.forename: Michal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Harel
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Malach
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009040:Motion Pictures; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012146:Rest; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: beep detection; fMRI; movie; resting state; retinotopy