Individual differences in mental imagery modulate effective connectivity of scene-selective regions during resting state

Abstract

Successful navigation relies on the ability to identify, perceive, and correctly process the spatial structure of a scene. It is well known that visual mental imagery plays a crucial role in navigation. Indeed, cortical regions encoding navigationally relevant information are also active during mental imagery of navigational scenes. However, it remains unknown whether their intrinsic activity and connectivity reflect the individuals’ ability to imagine a scene. Here, we primarily investigated the intrinsic causal interactions among scene-selective brain regions such as Parahipoccampal Place Area (PPA), Retrosplenial Complex, and Occipital Place Area (OPA) using Dynamic Causal Modelling for resting-state functional magnetic resonance data. Second, we tested whether resting-state effective connectivity parameters among scene-selective regions could reflect individual differences in mental imagery in our sample, as assessed by the self-reported Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire. We found an inhibitory influence of occipito-medial on temporal regions, and an excitatory influence of more anterior on more medial and posterior brain regions. Moreover, we found that a key role in imagery is played by the connection strength from OPA to PPA, especially in the left hemisphere, since the influence of the signal between these scene-selective regions positively correlated with good mental imagery ability. Our investigation contributes to the understanding of the complexity of the causal interaction among brain regions involved in navigation and provides new insight in understanding how an essential ability, such as mental imagery, can be explained by the intrinsic fluctuation of brain signal.

Preferential signal pathways during the perception and imagery of familiar scenes: An effective connectivity study

“…In the past, DCM has been used to reveal the neural interactions in perception and imagery (Dijkstra et al, 2017 ; Mechelli, 2004 ). Also, our group investigated the impact of imagery abilities on dynamic couplings at rest among brain regions involved in the perception of places (Tullo et al, 2022 ). Compared to these previous works, we expanded the network of regions of which we assessed the involvement in scene perception and navigation, and we compared the effective connectivity during the perception and the imagery of places.…”

The Action Cycle Theory of Perception and Mental Imagery

“…Recent studies have demonstrated that imagery VVIQ vividness scores correlate significantly with objectively quantifiable measurements of hippocampal volumes in a large sample of healthy people across different ages [ 51 ]. Tullo et al (2022) investigated the interactions among scene-selective brain regions including the parahipoccampal place area (PPA), the retrosplenial complex and the occipital place area (OPA) using Dynamic Causal Modelling for resting-state functional magnetic resonance data [ 52 ]. They tested whether resting-state effective connectivity among scene-selective regions reflected individual differences in VMI vividness using the VVIQ.…”

Vividness of Visual Imagery Supported by Intrinsic Structural-Functional Brain Network Dynamics

“…Building on the results of connectivity studies, evidence from lesion studies, metaanalytic fMRI-task-based activation studies, and systematic reviews, we identified regions of interest constituting a hypothesized "Visual imagery Network". This network encompasses bilateral regions of the inferior frontal gyrus (specifically the orbital, triangular, and opercular areas ) (N. Winlove et al, 2018), the parahippocampal gyrus (Fulford et al, 2018;Spagna et al, 2021;Tullo et al, 2022), the inferior temporal gyrus and sulcus, lateral occipital temporal sulcus and gyrus (fusiform) (Bartolomeo, 2002;Fulford et al, 2018;Haxby et al, 2001;Ishai et al, 2000;Spagna et al, 2021;Winlove et al, 2018), intraparietal sulcus (N. , precuneus (Cavanna and Trimble, 2006;Knauff et al, 2003), and the occipital pole (N. (as defined by the Destrieux Parcellation atlas) (Destrieux et al, 2010) (see supplementary material for details).…”

“…This network encompasses bilateral regions of the inferior frontal gyrus (specifically the orbital, triangular, and opercular areas) (N. Dijkstra et al, 2017; Winlove et al, 2018), the parahippocampal gyrus (Fulford et al, 2018; Spagna et al, 2021; Tullo et al, 2022), the inferior temporal gyrus and sulcus, lateral occipital temporal sulcus and gyrus (fusiform) (Bartolomeo, 2002; N. Dijkstra et al, 2017; Fulford et al, 2018; Haxby et al, 2001; Ishai et al, 2000; Spagna et al, 2021; Winlove et al, 2018), intraparietal sulcus (N.…”