Decoding individual identity from brain activity elicited in imagining common experiences

Andrew James Anderson (), Kelsey McDermott, Brian Rooks, Kathi L. Heffner, David Dodell-Feder and Feng V. Lin
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Andrew James Anderson: University of Rochester Medical Center
Kelsey McDermott: University of Rochester Medical Center
Brian Rooks: University of Rochester Medical Center
Kathi L. Heffner: University of Rochester Medical Center
David Dodell-Feder: University of Rochester Medical Center
Feng V. Lin: University of Rochester Medical Center

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract Everyone experiences common events differently. This leads to personal memories that presumably provide neural signatures of individual identity when events are reimagined. We present initial evidence that these signatures can be read from brain activity. To do this, we progress beyond previous work that has deployed generic group-level computational semantic models to distinguish between neural representations of different events, but not revealed interpersonal differences in event representations. We scanned 26 participants’ brain activity using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging as they vividly imagined themselves personally experiencing 20 common scenarios (e.g., dancing, shopping, wedding). Rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach to generically model scenarios, we constructed personal models from participants’ verbal descriptions and self-ratings of sensory/motor/cognitive/spatiotemporal and emotional characteristics of the imagined experiences. We demonstrate that participants’ neural representations are better predicted by their own models than other peoples’. This showcases how neuroimaging and personalized models can quantify individual-differences in imagined experiences.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19630-y

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