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Spatial organization of neural responses to animate and inanimate movement is reflected in intrinsic functional connectivity
Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom
Seda Karakose-Akbiyik1 (sakbiyik@fas.harvard.edu), Alfonso Caramazza1,2; 1Harvard University, 2University of Coimbra
Research shows that frontoparietal and temporal regions are involved in action observation. Traditionally, previous research focused on how these regions process information about actions that is unique to animate agents (sociality, goals, biological motion). Recently, we identified a shared neural code in these regions for capturing the physics of agent actions and object events, implying a broader role in interpreting dynamic scenes. However, it remains unclear how the brain organizes information about dynamic scenes that is unique to animate entities versus those that apply to both animate agents and inanimate objects. Here, we investigated the spatial organization of neural responses to animate and inanimate movement, within individuals, and in relation to the brain's functional network architecture. Participants watched two dots moving on a screen and predicted their future trajectory. The movements were either shaped solely by external physical forces (inanimate) or depicted actions of self-propelled agents (animate). Both conditions recruited a network of frontoparietal and occipitotemporal regions. These regions also showed higher responses in the inanimate condition, which required a detailed analysis of the physical dynamics. Adjacent regions showed preferential recruitment for the animate condition, creating an interdigitated pattern of neural responses to animate or inanimate movement throughout frontoparietal and temporal cortices. Two distinct resting-state networks emerged: one associated with the general analysis of movement (for animate/inanimate entities) and another preferentially recruited for animate movement. Our findings extend existing frameworks of dynamic information processing and highlight the importance of considering connectivity between different brain regions in studying their functional organization.
Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Vision