Predicting individual face-selective topography using naturalistic stimuli

Abstract

Subject-specific, functionally defined areas are conventionally estimated with functional localizers and a simple contrast analysis between responses to different stimulus categories. Compared with functional localizers, naturalistic stimuli provide several advantages such as stronger and widespread brain activation, greater engagement, and increased subject compliance. In this study we demonstrate that a subject’s idiosyncratic functional topography can be estimated with high fidelity from that subject’s fMRI data obtained while watching a naturalistic movie using hyperalignment to project other subjects’ localizer data into that subject’s idiosyncratic cortical anatomy. These findings lay the foundation for developing an efficient tool for mapping functional topographies for a wide range of perceptual and cognitive functions in new subjects based only on fMRI data collected while watching an engaging, naturalistic stimulus and other subjects’ localizer data from a normative sample.