Biology subjects

Gaebler, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Gaebler, M..

18 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Expectation Shapes Neural Preparation for AI-generated and Real Image Processing: Evidence from EEG

AbstractAI-generated images, videos, and news have become an inseparable part of daily life, leading to increasing skepticism toward online information. Understanding how expectations about the presence of AI-generated content influence perception is crucial for elucidating the underlying neural mechanisms and facilitating the generation of naturalistic avatars. In this study, we analyzed an existing EEG dataset (N = 29) in which participants viewed emotional facial photographs of only real individuals while being informed that upcoming faces were either real ("REAL") or AI-generated ("FAKE"). We examined pre-stimulus oscillatory activities in the one-second EEG interval before stimulus onset and found significantly lower alpha power when participants expected "FAKE" compared to "REAL" faces. This effect was region-specific, particularly in right occipito-parietal and temporo-parietal regions, as identified by both sensor- and source- level analyses. In addition, the modulation effect between pre-stimulus alpha activity and post-stimulus event-related potentials (ERPs) was measured. A significant correlation between changes in late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes and pre-stimulus alpha power was observed exclusively for "FAKE" smiling faces, consistent with our previous findings. These results suggest that AI-related expectations modulate neural preparatory states, with lower alpha activity presumably reflecting increased attentional demands for stimuli believed to be artificially generated. This study demonstrates that top-down beliefs systematically shape both pre- and post-stimulus neural dynamics, providing new insights into how cognitive expectations bias perceptual processing, with implications for understanding human-AI interaction and improving the design and evaluation of AI- generated content in real-world contexts.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Central and peripheral dynamics of acute stress: evidence from functional cortical gradients

Stress involves coordinated central and peripheral processes that unfold dynamically and can be assessed through brain, autonomic, endocrine, and subjective measures. Centrally, acute stress has been linked to altered functional connectivity, particularly in the salience (SN), frontoparietal networks (FPN), and default mode networks (DMN). Here, we used cortical gradients to characterize stress-related reconfiguration in macroscale functional space and assessed their relation to peripheral stress measures. We performed secondary analyses on data from 67 young males completing the Trier Social Stress Test or a control task with resting-state fMRI before and after, concurrent peripheral (autonomic, endocrine) and subjective measures. To assess region- and network-specific changes in functional organization, we derived eccentricity and within- and between-network dispersion for the first three cortical gradients. Acute stress was associated with selective gradient reconfigurations in the right ventral prefrontal cortex and left insula and with increased SN-DMN and SN-FPN dispersion, indicating DMN and FPN decoupling from the SN. Although no associations with peripheral or subjective stress measures survived multiple-comparison correction, nominal effects suggested partly distinct links of saliva cortisol with local gradient changes and HRV with network-level reconfiguration. Together, these findings show that acute stress selectively reconfigures macroscale cortical organization.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

EEG-decodability of facial expressions and their stereoscopic depth cues in immersive virtual reality

Face perception typically occurs in three-dimensional space, where stereoscopic depth cues enrich the perception of facial features. Yet, most neurophysiological research on face processing relies on two-dimensional displays, potentially overlooking the role of stereoscopic depth information. Here, we combine immersive virtual reality (VR), electroencephalography (EEG), and eye tracking to examine the neural representation of faces under controlled manipulations of stereoscopic depth. Thirty-four participants viewed computer-generated faces with neutral, happy, angry, and surprised expressions in frontal view under monoscopic and stereoscopic viewing conditions. Using time-resolved multivariate decoding, we show that EEG signals in immersive VR conditions can reliably differentiate facial expressions. Stereoscopic depth cues elicited a distinct and decodable neural signature, confirming the sensitivity of our approach to depth-related processing. Yet, expression decoding remained robust across depth conditions, indicating that under controlled frontal viewing, the neural representation of behaviorally distinguishable facial expressions is invariant to binocular depth cues. Eye tracking showed that expression-related gaze patterns contained comparable information but did not account for neural representations, while depth information was absent in gaze patterns--consistent with dissociable representational processes. Our findings demonstrate the feasibility of EEG-based neural decoding in fully immersive VR as a tool for investigating face perception in naturalistic settings and provide new evidence for the stability of expression representations across depth variations in three-dimensional viewing conditions.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

The utility of explainable A.I. for MRI analysis: Relating model predictions to neuroimaging features of the aging brain

IntroductionDeep learning models highly accurately predict brain-age from MRI but their explanatory capacity is limited. Explainable A.I. (XAI) methods can identify relevant voxels contributing to model estimates, yet, they do not reveal which biological features these voxels represent. In this study, we closed this gap by relating voxel-based contributions to brain-age estimates, extracted with XAI, to human-interpretable structural features of the aging brain. MethodsTo this end, we associated participant-level XAI-based relevance maps extracted from two ensembles of 3D-convolutional neural networks (3D-CNN) that were trained on T1-weighted and fluid attenuated inversion recovery images of 2016 participants (age range 18-82 years), respectively, with regional cortical and subcortical gray matter volume and thickness, perivascular spaces (PVS) and water diffusion-based fractional anisotropy of main white matter tracts. ResultsWe found that all neuroimaging markers of brain aging, except for PVS, were highly correlated with the XAI-based relevance maps. Overall, the strongest correlation was found between ventricular volume and relevance (r = 0.69), and by feature, temporal-parietal cortical thickness and volume, cerebellar gray matter volume and frontal-occipital white matter tracts showed the strongest correlations with XAI-based relevance. ConclusionOur ensembles of 3D-CNNs took into account a plethora of known aging processes in the brain to perform age prediction. Some age-associated features like PVS were not consistently considered by the models, and the cerebellum was more important than expected. Taken together, we highlight the ability of end-to-end deep learning models combined with XAI to reveal biologically relevant, multi-feature relationships in the brain.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

No cardiac phase bias for threat perception under naturalistic conditions in immersive virtual reality

Previous studies have found that threatening stimuli are more readily perceived and more intensely experienced when presented during cardiac systole compared to diastole. Also, threatening stimuli are judged as physically closer than neutral ones. In a pre-registered study, we tested these effects and their interaction using a naturalistic (interactive, 3D) experimental design in immersive virtual reality: We briefly displayed threatening and non-threatening animals (four each) at varying distances (1.5-5.5 meters) to a group of young, healthy participants (n = 41), while recording their ECGs (electrocardiograms). Participants then pointed to the location where they had seen the animal (ca. 29k trials in total). Our pre-registered analyses indicated that perceived distances to both threatening and non-threatening animals did not differ significantly between cardiac phases - with Bayesian analysis supporting the null hypothesis. There was also no evidence for an association between subjective fear and perceived proximity to threatening animals. These results contrast with previous findings that used verbal or declarative distance measures in less naturalistic experimental conditions. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the cardiac phase-related variation in threat processing may not generalize across different paradigms and may be less relevant in naturalistic scenarios than under more abstract experimental conditions. Impact statementTo our knowledge, this is the first study to assess the influence of interoceptive cardiac signals on visual perception using naturalistic stimuli in immersive virtual reality. We based the design of our experiment on previous reports about threat processing biases and the role of the cardiac cycle but did not observe the expected effects. This poses the question of their generalizability from abstract settings to more naturalistic setups, featuring greater behavioral engagement and a richer sensory environment.

physiology↗

bioRxiv2024

Linking brain-heart interactions to emotional arousal in immersive virtual reality

The subjective experience of emotions is linked to the contextualized perception and appraisal of changes in bodily (e.g., heart) activity. Increased emotional arousal has been related to attenuated high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), lower EEG parieto-occipital alpha power, and higher heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP) amplitudes. We studied emotional arousal-related brain- heart interactions using immersive virtual reality (VR) for naturalistic yet controlled emotion induction. 29 healthy adults (13 women, age: 26{+/-}3) completed a VR experience that included rollercoasters while EEG and ECG were recorded. Continuous emotional arousal ratings were collected during a video replay immediately after. We analyzed emotional arousal-related changes in HF-HRV as well as in BHIs using HEPs. Additionally, we used the oscillatory information in the ECG and the EEG to model the directional information flows between the brain and heart activity. We found that higher emotional arousal was associated with lower HEP amplitudes in a left fronto- central electrode cluster. While parasympathetic modulation of the heart (HF-HRV) and parieto- occipital EEG alpha power were reduced during higher emotional arousal, there was no evidence for the hypothesized emotional arousal-related changes in bidirectional information flow between them. Whole-brain exploratory analyses in additional EEG (delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma) and HRV (low-frequency, LF, and HF) frequency bands revealed a temporo-occipital cluster, in which higher emotional arousal was linked to decreased brain-to-heart (i.e., gamma[->]HF-HRV) and increased heart-to-brain (i.e., LF-HRV[->]gamma) information flow. Our results confirm previous findings from less naturalistic experiments and suggest a link between emotional arousal and brain-heart interactions in temporo-occipital gamma power.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Visual short-term memory related EEG components in a virtual reality setup

Virtual reality (VR) offers a powerful tool for investigating cognitive processes, as it allows researchers to gauge behaviors and mental states in complex, yet highly controlled, scenarios. The use of VR head-mounted displays in combination with physiological measures such as EEG presents new challenges and raises the question whether established findings also generalize to a VR setup. Here, we used a VR headset to assess the spatial constraints underlying two well-established EEG correlates of visual short-term memory: the amplitude of the contralateral delay activity (CDA) and the lateralization of induced alpha power during memory retention. We tested observers visual memory in a delayed match-to-sample task with bilateral stimulus arrays of either two or four items while varying the horizontal eccentricity of the memory arrays (4, 9, or 14 degrees of visual angle). The CDA amplitude differed between high and low memory load at the two smaller eccentricities, but not at the largest eccentricity. Neither memory load nor eccentricity significantly influenced the observed alpha lateralization. We further fitted time-resolved spatial filters to decode memory load from the event-related potential as well as from its time-frequency decomposition. Classification performance during the retention interval was above chance level for both approaches and did not vary significantly across eccentricities. We conclude that commercial VR hardware can be utilized to study the CDA and lateralized alpha power, and we provide caveats for future studies targeting these EEG markers of visual memory in a VR setup. Impact statementCombining EEG with virtual reality, we studied how the eccentricity of a memory array during encoding affects well-known neural markers of visual short-term memory. We reveal that the previously reported occurrence of these EEG components during visual memory retention can be replicated in such a setup. These EEG markers were differently affected by eccentricity, hence providing valuable constraints for future experimental designs.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Rapid volumetric brain changes after acute psychosocial stress

Stress is an important trigger for brain plasticity: Acute stress can rapidly affect brain activity and functional connectivity, and chronic or pathological stress has been associated with structural brain changes. Measures of structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be modified by short-term motor learning or visual stimulation, suggesting that they also capture rapid brain changes. Here, we investigated volumetric brain changes (together with changes in T1 relaxation rate and cerebral blood flow) after acute stress in humans as well as their relation to psychophysiological stress measures. Sixty-seven healthy men (25.8{+/-}2.7 years) completed a standardized psychosocial laboratory stressor (Trier Social Stress Test) or a control version while blood, saliva, heart rate, and psychometrics were sampled. Structural MRI (T1 mapping / MP2RAGE sequence) at 3T was acquired 45 min before and 90 min after intervention onset. Grey matter volume (GMV) changes were analysed using voxel-based morphometry. Associations with endocrine, autonomic, and subjective stress measures were tested with linear models. We found significant group-by-time interactions in several brain clusters including anterior/mid-cingulate cortices and bilateral insula: GMV was increased in the stress group relative to the control group, in which several clusters showed a GMV decrease. We found a significant group-by-time interaction for cerebral blood flow, and a main effect of time for T1 values (longitudinal relaxation time). In addition, GMV changes were significantly associated with state anxiety and heart rate variability changes. Such rapid GMV changes assessed with VBM may be induced by local tissue adaptations to changes in energy demand following neural activity. Our findings suggest that endogenous brain changes are counteracted by acute psychosocial stress, which emphasizes the importance of considering homeodynamic processes and generally highlights the influence of stress on the brain. HighlightsO_LIWe investigated rapid brain changes using MRI in a stress and a control group C_LIO_LIVBM-derived GMV showed a significant group-by-time interaction in several clusters C_LIO_LIMain pattern: GMV in the stress group increased relative to the control group, in which GMV decreased C_LIO_LIGMV changes across groups were associated with state anxiety and heart rate variability C_LIO_LINeither cerebral blood flow, nor T1 values fully account for the VBM results C_LI

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Decoding subjective emotional arousal from EEG during an immersive Virtual Reality experience

Immersive virtual reality (VR) enables naturalistic neuroscientific studies while maintaining experimental control, but dynamic and interactive stimuli pose methodological challenges. We here probed the link between emotional arousal, a fundamental property of affective experience, and parieto-occipital alpha power under naturalistic stimulation: 37 young healthy adults completed an immersive VR experience, which included rollercoaster rides, while their EEG was recorded. They then continuously rated their subjective emotional arousal while viewing a replay of their experience. The association between emotional arousal and parieto-occipital alpha power was tested and confirmed by (1) decomposing the continuous EEG signal while maximizing the comodulation between alpha power and arousal ratings and by (2) decoding periods of high and low arousal with discriminative common spatial patterns and a Long Short-Term Memory recurrent neural network. We successfully combine EEG and a naturalistic immersive VR experience to extend previous findings on the neurophysiology of emotional arousal towards real-world neuroscience.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Heart-Brain Interactions Shape Somatosensory Perception and Evoked Potentials

Human perception either refers to the external world, exteroception, or internal body parts such as the heart, interoception. How these two types of perception interact is poorly understood. Using electroencephalography, we identify two heartbeat-related modulations of conscious somatosensory perception: (i) When stimulus timing coincided with systole of the cardiac cycle, participants were less likely to detect and localize somatosensory stimuli, and late components (P300) of the somatosensory-evoked potential (SEP) were attenuated. (ii) The amplitude of the heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP) negatively correlated with detection bias (criterion) and localization accuracy. Furthermore, higher HEP amplitudes were followed by decreases in both early and late SEP amplitudes. Both heartbeat-related effects were independent of the alpha oscillations influence on somatosensory processing. We conclude that internal signals are integrated into our conscious perception of the world, and connect our results to predictive processing (heartbeat-coupled stimulus timing) and attentional shifts between exteroception and interoception (HEP amplitude).

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Activity in the left amygdala in response to foods differs depending on the emotional context

Emotions can influence our eating behaviors. Facing an acute stressor or being in a positive mood are examples of situations that tend to modify appetite. However, the question of how the brain integrates these emotion-related changes in food processing remains elusive. Here we designed an emotional priming fMRI task to test if amygdala activity during food pictures differs depending on the emotional context. Fifty-eight female participants completed a novel emotional priming task, in which emotional images of negative, neutral or positive situations were followed by pictures of either foods or objects. After priming in each trial, participants rated how much they liked the shown foods or objects. We analyzed how brain activity during the contrast \"foods > objects\" changed according to the emotional context - in the whole brain and in the amygdala. We also examined the potential effect of adiposity (i.e., waist circumference). We observed a higher difference between liking scores for foods and objects after positive priming than after neutral priming. In the left amygdala, activity in the contrast \"foods > objects\" was higher after neutral priming relative to negative priming. Waist circumference was not significantly related to this emotional priming effect on food processing. Our results suggest that emotional context alters food and non-food perception, both in terms of liking scores and with regards to engagement of the left amygdala. Moreover, our findings indicate that emotional context has an impact on the salience advantage of food, possibly affecting eating behavior.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Hemispheric asymmetries in resting-state EEG and fMRI are related to approach and avoidance behaviour, but not to eating behaviour or BMI

Much of our behaviour is driven by two motivational dimensions - approach and avoidance. These have been related to frontal hemispheric asymmetries in clinical and resting-state EEG studies: approach was linked to higher activity of the left relative to the right hemisphere, while avoidance was related to the opposite pattern. Increased approach behaviour, specifically towards unhealthy foods, is also observed in obesity and has been linked to asymmetry in the framework of the right-brain hypothesis of obesity. Here, we aimed to replicate previous EEG findings of hemispheric asymmetries for self-reported approach/avoidance behaviour and to relate them to eating behaviour. Further, we assessed whether resting fMRI hemispheric asymmetries can be detected and whether they are related to approach/avoidance, eating behaviour, and BMI. We analysed 3 samples: Sample 1 (n=117) containing EEG and fMRI data from lean participants, and Samples 2 (n=89) and 3 (n=152) containing fMRI data from lean, overweight, and obese participants. While in Sample 1 approach in women was related to EEG and fMRI hemispheric asymmetries, in Samples 2 and 3 this effect was not significant. Here, hemispheric asymmetries were neither related to BMI nor eating behaviour. Our study partly replicates previous EEG findings regarding hemispheric asymmetries and indicates that this relationship could also be captured using fMRI. Our findings suggest that eating behaviour and obesity are likely to be mediated by mechanisms not directly relating to frontal asymmetries in neuronal activation quantified with EEG and fMRI.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

BOLD and EEG Signal Variability at Rest Differently Relate to Aging in the Human Brain

Variability of neural activity is regarded as a crucial feature of healthy brain function, and several neuroimaging approaches have been employed to assess it noninvasively. Studies on the variability of both evoked brain response and spontaneous brain signals have shown remarkable changes with aging but it is unclear if the different measures of brain signal variability - identified with either hemodynamic or electrophysiological methods - reflect the same underlying physiology. In this study, we aimed to explore age differences of spontaneous brain signal variability with two different imaging modalities (EEG, fMRI) in healthy younger (25{+/-}3 years, N=135) and older (67{+/-}4 years, N=54) adults. Consistent with the previous studies, we found lower blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) variability in the older subjects as well as less signal variability in the amplitude of low-frequency oscillations (1-12 Hz), measured in source space. These age-related reductions were mostly observed in the areas that overlap with the default mode network. Moreover, age-related increases of variability in the amplitude of beta-band frequency EEG oscillations (15-25 Hz) were seen predominantly in temporal brain regions. There were significant sex differences in EEG signal variability in various brain regions while no significant sex differences were observed in BOLD signal variability. Bivariate and multivariate correlation analyses revealed no significant associations between EEG- and fMRI-based variability measures. In summary, we show that both BOLD and EEG signal variability reflect aging-related processes but are likely to be dominated by different physiological origins, which relate differentially to age and sex.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Interactions between cardiac activity and conscious somatosensory perception

Fluctuations in the hearts activity can modulate the access of external stimuli to consciousness. The link between perceptual awareness and cardiac signals has been investigated mainly in the visual and auditory domain. We here investigated whether the phase of the cardiac cycle and the pre-stimulus heart rate influence conscious somatosensory perception. We also tested how conscious detection of somatosensory stimuli affects the heart rate. Electrocardiograms (ECG) of 33 healthy volunteers were recorded while applying near-threshold electrical pulses at a fixed intensity to the left index finger. Conscious detection was not uniformly distributed across the cardiac cycle but significantly higher in diastole than in systole. We found no evidence that the heart rate before a stimulus influenced its detection but hits (correctly detected somatosensory stimuli) led to a more pronounced cardiac deceleration than misses. Our findings demonstrate interactions between cardiac activity and conscious somatosensory perception, which highlights the importance of internal bodily states for sensory processing beyond the auditory and visual domain. Impact StatementIt is highly debated to what extent cardiac activity modulates the access of external stimuli to consciousness. The evidence is inconsistent across sensory modalities and previous research focused at specific intervals within the cardiac cycle. Here, we examined the perception of near-threshold electrical pulses across the entire cardiac cycle. Our results show that conscious somatosensory perception is enhanced during the late phase of the cardiac cycle (at diastole) and associated with a more pronounced cardiac deceleration (as compared to non-detected stimuli). This strengthens the evidence that the physiological state of the body influences how we perceive the world.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

The age-dependent relationship between resting heart rate variability and functional brain connectivity

Resting heart rate variability (HRV), an index of parasympathetic cardioregulation and an individual trait marker related to mental and physical health, decreases with age. Previous studies have associated resting HRV with structural and functional properties of the brain - mainly in cortical midline and limbic structures. We hypothesized that HRV may alter its relationship with brain structure and function across the adult lifespan. In 388 healthy subjects of three age groups (140 younger: 26.0{+/-}4.2 years, 119 middle-aged: 46.3{+/-}6.2 years, 129 older: 66.9{+/-}4.7 years), gray matter structure (voxel-based morphometry) and resting-state functional connectivity (eigenvector centrality mapping and exploratory seed-based functional connectivity) were related to resting HRV, measured as the root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD). Confirming previous findings, resting HRV decreased with age. For HRV-related gray matter volume, there were no statistically significant differences between the age groups, nor similarities across all age groups. In whole-brain functional connectivity analyses, we found an age-dependent association between resting HRV and eigenvector centrality in the bilateral ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), driven by the younger adults. Across all age groups, HRV was positively correlated with network centrality in bilateral posterior cingulate cortex. Seed-based functional connectivity analysis using the vmPFC cluster revealed an HRV-related cortico-cerebellar network in younger but not in middle-aged or older adults. Our results indicate that the decrease of HRV with age is accompanied by changes in functional connectivity along the cortical midline. This extends our knowledge of brain-body interactions and their changes over the lifespan.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

Active vision varies across the cardiac cycle

Perception and cognition oscillate with fluctuating bodily states. For example, visual processing has been shown to change with alternating cardiac phases. Here, we study the heartbeats role for active information sampling--testing whether humans implicitly act upon their environment so that relevant signals appear during preferred cardiac phases. During the encoding period of a visual memory experiment, participants clicked through a set of emotional pictures to memorize them for a later recognition test. By self-paced key press, they actively prompted the onset of shortly (100-ms) presented pictures. Simultaneously recorded electrocardiograms allowed us to analyse the self-initiated picture onsets relative to the heartbeat. We find that self-initiated picture onsets vary across the cardiac cycle, showing an increase during cardiac systole, while memory performance was not affected by the heartbeat. We conclude that active information sampling integrates heart-related signals, thereby extending previous findings on the association between body-brain interactions and behaviour.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Association of Peripheral Blood Pressure with Grey Matter Volume in 19- to 40-Year-Old Adults

ObjectiveTo test whether elevated blood pressure (BP) relates to grey matter volume (GMV) changes in young adults who had not previously been diagnosed as hypertensive (systolic BP (SBP)/diastolic BP (DBP)[≥]140/90 mmHg).\n\nMethodsWe associated BP with GMV from structural 3 Tesla T1-weighted MRI of 423 healthy adults between 19-40 years (mean age=27.7{+/-}5.3 years, 177 women, SBP/DBP=123.2/73.4{+/-}12.2/8.5 mmHg). Data originated from four previously unpublished cross-sectional studies conducted in Leipzig, Germany. We performed voxel-based morphometry on each study separately and combined results in image-based meta-analyses (IBMA) to assess cumulative effects across studies. Resting BP was assigned to one of four categories: (1) SBP<120 and DBP<80 mmHg, (2) SBP 120-129 or DBP 80-84 mmHg, (3) SBP 130-139 or DBP 85-89 mmHg, (4) SBP[≥]140 or DBP[≥]90 mmHg.\n\nResultsIBMA yielded: (a) lower regional GMV was correlated with higher peripheral BP; (b) lower GMV with higher BP when comparing individuals in sub-hypertensive categories 3 and 2, respectively, to those in category 1; (c) lower BP-related GMV was found in regions including hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus, frontal and parietal structures (e.g. precuneus).\n\nConclusionsBP[≥]120/80 mmHg was associated with lower GMV in regions that have previously been related to GM decline in older individuals with manifest hypertension. Our study shows that BP-associated GM alterations emerge continuously across the range of BP and earlier in adulthood than previously assumed. This suggests that treating hypertension or maintaining lower BP in early adulthood might be essential for preventing the pathophysiological cascade of asymptomatic cerebrovascular disease to symptomatic end-organ damage, such as stroke or dementia.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

A functional connectome phenotyping dataset including cognitive state and personality measures

The dataset enables exploration of higher-order cognitive faculties, self-generated mental experience, and personality features in relation to the intrinsic functional architecture of the brain. We provide multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data and a broad set of state and trait phenotypic assessments: mind-wandering, personality traits, and cognitive abilities. Specifically, 194 healthy participants (between 20 and 75 years of age) filled out 31 questionnaires, performed 7 tasks, and reported 4 probes of in-scanner mind-wandering. The scanning session included four 15.5-min resting-state functional MRI runs using a multiband EPI sequence and a high-resolution structural scan using a 3D MP2RAGE sequence. This dataset constitutes one part of the MPI-Leipzig Mind-Brain-Body database.

neuroscience↗