All articles tagged with #fmri
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have developed Brain-IT, an AI model that reconstructs images people are viewing from brain scans with high accuracy. The system requires only one hour of calibration per user, significantly faster than previous models, and identifies 128 shared functional brain regions. While promising for aiding paralyzed communication, experts warn of potential privacy risks if adapted for wearable devices.
Israeli researchers have developed Brain-IT, an AI system that reconstructs images people are viewing with high accuracy using fMRI brain scans. The tool uses a dual-branch model to decode visual structure and content, requiring only one hour of calibration per user. While promising for helping paralyzed individuals communicate and accelerating brain research, experts warn of significant privacy risks if the technology is adapted for non-invasive EEG devices.
A new neuroimaging study across three age groups shows aging alters how the hippocampus replays memories: younger adults’ patterns reinstating precise details predict better recall, while older adults’ similar patterns are linked to category-level mistakes (e.g., choosing a scene instead of an object). Middle age shows a transitional pattern. Memory accuracy declines with age, with hippocampal pattern stability explaining about 30% of the decline, independent of hippocampal size. The researchers say these changes are due to functional shifts in memory processing and suggest future work in neurofeedback and neurostimulation to boost memory in aging.
A Rice University study shows that how we retrieve information—whether focusing on a specific feature or broader category—does not drastically change recall performance, but it leaves distinct neural traces. Using fMRI and machine-learning analysis, researchers found retrieval style alters brain patterns in memory-related and perceptual areas, indicating memory is dynamic and updated during recall rather than simply replayed.
A small, observational study of 20 adults at a seven-day meditation retreat found brain and blood changes: fMRI showed reduced activity in the default mode and salience networks and greater whole-brain integration; post-retreat plasma caused neurons in a dish to grow longer neurites; blood tests indicated metabolic, immune, and endogenous-opioid shifts; MEQ-30 scores rose, suggesting heightened mystical experiences akin to psychedelic effects, though causality can't be established due to lack of a control group; one co-author is the retreat's CEO, and researchers call for more rigorous, controlled studies to confirm these results.
Eight dogs scanned with fMRI showed that happy human faces strongly activate the temporal cortex and caudate, while fear, sadness, and anger trigger distinct whole-brain patterns, indicating dogs can differentiate these emotions at the neural level—though they also rely on body language, voice, and scent in real interactions.
A large resting-state fMRI study links misophonia to activity in the anterior insula and the brain's salience network, with severity correlating to how these regions synchronize with auditory and motor areas, supporting a spectrum view rather than a binary condition. The research used 162 brain scans plus a 777-person survey to estimate misophonia prevalence and severity, and found brain patterns distinct from anxiety, depression, or autism, though the imaging data did not directly test misophonia in participants. Future work should validate brain activity in people with confirmed misophonia and employ other neuroimaging methods.
Using fMRI data from about 5,800 preteens in the ABCD study, researchers found that baseline amygdala response to emotional faces uniquely predicted social health two years later, with high reactivity linked to more peer involvement in girls but less in boys, suggesting sex-specific brain development trajectories.
A study of 635 adults using fMRI found that the age at which abuse occurs matters for later emotion processing: abuse before age 13 is linked to heightened hippocampal activity during rapid, non-conscious emotion processing, while abuse in adolescence (13–18) is linked to heightened amygdala activity during conscious emotion processing. These patterns persisted across various mental health diagnoses and healthy controls, suggesting the timing of adversity leaves lasting neural marks and could guide targeted interventions, though retrospective reporting and cross-sectional design limit conclusions.
Georgetown researchers report that extensive practice can relocate a learned task from the prefrontal cortex to the temporal cortex, offloading mental effort and enabling true multitasking, with implications for education, medical training, and AI systems.
A large international study analyzed brain connectivity in about 940 autistic individuals and over 1,000 neurotypical controls, plus mouse models, and found two reproducible autism subtypes: a hyperconnectivity subtype with stronger inter-regional brain communication linked to immune-related pathways, and a hypoconnectivity subtype with reduced communication linked to synaptic pathways. Together these subtypes account for roughly 25% of autism cases and provide a biology-based framework for precision, personalized approaches to care.
A cross-species, large-scale study used fMRI and mouse genetics to identify two reproducible autism subtypes: hypoconnectivity (reduced brain-region communication linked to synaptic pathways) and hyperconnectivity (increased communication linked to immune-related systems). Validated across 20 mouse models and ABIDE human data (≈940 autistic individuals and ≈1,000 neurotypical controls), these subtypes account for about 25% of cases, offering a path toward biology-driven, precision autism care beyond traditional behavioral assessments.
A seven-Tesla fMRI study shows that time perception is not a single clock but a three-stage cortical process: early visual areas encode physical durations, parietal and premotor regions map durations across a topographic layout, and frontal regions translate this into a subjective boundary, revealing a distributed, hierarchical network for how the brain experiences the passage of time.
A multinational reanalysis of 11 datasets (267 participants, 519 brain scans) across five psychedelics—psilocybin, LSD, mescaline, DMT and ayahuasca—identified a shared neural fingerprint: increased cross-network communication and selective reductions within certain networks across cortical and subcortical regions, suggesting a flattening of the brain's hierarchy. The pattern was most similar for psilocybin and LSD. While promising for understanding psychedelics and potential therapies, the study emphasizes the need for standardized, larger trials and notes that existing datasets used varied methods and doses.
Researchers publish the first lifespan atlas of brain functional connectivity, using fMRI data from about 3,600 people aged from infancy to 100 years to chart how brain networks reorganize from sensory processing to higher‑order cognition and relate to cognitive performance in young adults.