Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2022 Jun 15;43(9):2782-2800. doi: 10.1002/hbm.25815. Epub 2022 Mar 11.
Scanning young children while they watch short, engaging, commercially-produced movies has emerged as a promising approach for increasing data retention and quality. Movie stimuli also evoke a richer variety of cognitive processes than traditional experiments, allowing the study of multiple aspects of brain development simultaneously. However, because these stimuli are uncontrolled, it is unclear how effectively distinct profiles of brain activity can be distinguished from the resulting data. Here we develop an approach for identifying multiple distinct subject-specific Regions of Interest (ssROIs) using fMRI data collected during movie-viewing. We focused on the test case of higher-level visual regions selective for faces, scenes, and objects. Adults (N = 13) were scanned while viewing a 5.6-min child-friendly movie, as well as a traditional localizer experiment with blocks of faces, scenes, and objects. We found that just 2.7 min of movie data could identify subject-specific face, scene, and object regions. While successful, movie-defined ssROIS still showed weaker domain selectivity than traditional ssROIs. Having validated our approach in adults, we then used the same methods on movie data collected from 3 to 12-year-old children (N = 122). Movie response timecourses in 3-year-old children's face, scene, and object regions were already significantly and specifically predicted by timecourses from the corresponding regions in adults. We also found evidence of continued developmental change, particularly in the face-selective posterior superior temporal sulcus. Taken together, our results reveal both early maturity and functional change in face, scene, and object regions, and more broadly highlight the promise of short, child-friendly movies for developmental cognitive neuroscience.
在儿童观看简短、引人入胜的商业制作电影时对其进行扫描，已成为一种提高数据保留和质量的有前景的方法。电影刺激也比传统实验引发更多种类的认知过程，从而可以同时研究大脑发育的多个方面。然而，由于这些刺激是不受控制的，因此尚不清楚如何有效地从所得数据中区分出不同的大脑活动特征。在这里，我们开发了一种使用 fMRI 数据在观看电影期间识别多个独特的个体特定感兴趣区域（ssROI）的方法。我们专注于高级视觉区域（选择性地针对面孔、场景和物体）的测试案例。成年人（N=13）在观看 5.6 分钟的儿童友好电影以及具有面孔、场景和物体块的传统定位器实验时进行了扫描。我们发现，仅 2.7 分钟的电影数据即可识别出个体特定的面孔、场景和物体区域。尽管取得了成功，但电影定义的 ssROI 仍然表现出比传统 ssROI 更弱的域选择性。在成年人中验证了我们的方法之后，我们然后将相同的方法应用于从 3 至 12 岁儿童（N=122）收集的电影数据。3 岁儿童的面孔、场景和物体区域中的电影反应时间过程已经可以由成人相应区域的时间过程明显且特别地预测。我们还发现了持续发展变化的证据，特别是在后上颞叶的面孔选择性区域。总而言之，我们的研究结果揭示了面孔、场景和物体区域的早期成熟和功能变化，并且更广泛地强调了简短的儿童友好电影在发展认知神经科学中的潜力。
