Disentangling large-scale brain dynamics and their links to behavior during the emotional face matching task

Korponay, Cole (author), Cohen-Gilbert, Julia E. (author), Cheng, You (author), Kumar, Poornima (author), Harnett, Nathaniel G. (author), Medina, Adrian A. (author), Forester, Brent P. (author), Ressler, Kerry J. (author), Demšar, Jure (author), Frederick, Blaise B. (author), Beckmann, Christian F. (author), Harper, David G. (author), Nickerson, Lisa D. (author)

Emotion processing engages multiple large-scale brain networks. However, prior investigations relying on a priori, contrast-based models of brain activity obscure networks’ distinct temporal dynamics and roles in task performance. Here, we performed tensor independent component analysis to identify and track concurrent brain processes, including those with non-canonical dynamics, during the emotional face matching task (EFMT) in healthy young adults (n = 413; n = 416 replication). Ten EFMT-recruited large-scale brain networks were identified, reflecting flexible recoupling of visual association cortex to diverse non-visual networks. These networks collectively engaged 74% of cortex and more strongly explained variability in cognition and a performance-based index of emotion interference than contrast-based amygdala activation/connectivity. Variability in EFMT-recruited network activity was more strongly linked to variability in cognition than affect. Findings reveal a rich landscape of brain activity under the surface of contrast-based fMRI analyses and deepen insights into the distinct brain processes underlying subcomponents of emotional face processing.

• Language: English
• Keywords: neuroimaging, functional mri, brain dynamics, task analysis
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FRI - Faculty of Computer and Information Science
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: 11 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 8, Art. 1176
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-175517
• UDC: 004.9:612.82
• ISSN on article: 2399-3642
• DOI: 10.1038/s42003-025-08543-5
• COBISS.SI-ID: 245345027
• Publication date in RUL: 30.10.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Communications biology
• Shortened title: Commun. biolog.
• Publisher: Springer Nature
• ISSN: 2399-3642
• COBISS.SI-ID: 5134671

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: nevrološko slikanje, funkcijska magnetna resonanca, dinamike v možganih, analiza nalog

Projects

• Funder: NIH - National Institutes of Health
• Funding programme: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING
• Project number: 1RF1AG078304-01
• Name: Combining Computational Methods, RDoC, and Big Neuroimaging Data to Understand Mechanisms of Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Alzheimer's Disease