FMRI CORRELATES OF

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FMRI CORRELATES OF COMPREHENDING REAL-WORLD
EVENTS
Tatiana Sitnikova, Ph.D.1,2,4Alexis
Coty1,2,4 Daphne Robakis1,2,4 Phillip J. Holcomb,
Ph.D.5 Gina R. Kuperberg, M.D., Ph.D.2,3,4 W.
Caroline West, Ph.D.1,2,4 1 Dept of Neurology,
2 Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, 3 Dept
of Psychiatry, Mass Gen Hosp, Boston, MA,
USA 4 Harvard Med Sch, Boston, MA, USA 5 Dept of
Psychology, Tufts Univ, Medford, MA, USA
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• Introduction
• How do we use visual information to comprehend
  real-world events?
• Static pictures Naturalistic video clips
• Paradigm Contextual anomalies

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• Contextual Anomaly Paradigm with Videos

c o n t e x t
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• Introduction Electrophysiological Findings

Cz
congruous final scene anomalous final scene
Pz
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• Stimuli
• 40 congruous and 40 anomalous videos
• context 6 s long
• final scene 2 s long

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Stimuli Congruous Videoclick in the middle of
the slide to see the video
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Stimuli Anomalous Videoclick in the middle of
the slide to see the video
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• Methods
• 16 participants, mean age 21
• Pseudorandom stimulus presentation including
• fixation trials
• Counterbalanced design
• 3T Siemens MR scanner
• Event-related fMRI
• TR 2 s, TE 25 ms, 33 slices, 3 mm skip 1
  mm
• Talairach and spherical space

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Timecourse of Hemodynamic Response
signal change
0 6 10 20
30
time (s)
xcx
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Results Summed Activity between 10 18 s in
the Left Hemisphere
xcx
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Results Anatomical Regions of Interest
xcx
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Results Anatomical Regions of Interest
p.03 p10-4
anomalous vs. congruous average activity 10 - 18
s left hemisphere
left posterior-lateral temporal
xcx
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Results Anatomical Regions of Interest
p.03 p10-4
anomalous vs. congruous average activity 10 - 18
s left hemisphere
left inferior frontal (BA 44, 45)
xcx
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Results Anatomical Regions of Interest
p.03 p10-4
left caudate
anomalous vs. congruous average activity 10 - 18 s
xcx
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• Discussion
• How do fMRI and electrophysiological findings in
  language and visual real-world events tie
  together?

Anomalies in language and videos
Common brain activations
Common electrophysiology
Temporal cortex Inferior-frontal cortex Basal
ganglia
N400 LPC
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Conclusion
Higher-level visual comprehension
A wide neural network

• Future Directions
• Understanding cognitive functions of these brain
  regions
• Understanding the flow of information between
  these regions

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Results Anatomical Regions of Interest
0.9 0.6 0.3
signal change
p.03 p10-4
10 20 30
time (s)
left posterior-lateral temporal
anomalous vs. congruous average activity 10 - 18
s left hemisphere
left inferior frontal (BA 44, 45)
left caudate
xcx
Solid congruent dotted - anomalous