Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 12 March 2004:
Vol. 303. no. 5664, pp. 1634 - 1640
DOI: 10.1126/science.1089506
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Research Articles

Intersubject Synchronization of Cortical Activity During Natural Vision

Uri Hasson,1* Yuval Nir,2 Ifat Levy,1,3 Galit Fuhrmann,1 Rafael Malach1{dagger}

To what extent do all brains work alike during natural conditions? We explored this question by letting five subjects freely view half an hour of a popular movie while undergoing functional brain imaging. Applying an unbiased analysis in which spatiotemporal activity patterns in one brain were used to "model" activity in another brain, we found a striking level of voxel-by-voxel synchronization between individuals, not only in primary and secondary visual and auditory areas but also in association cortices. The results reveal a surprising tendency of individual brains to "tick collectively" during natural vision. The intersubject synchronization consisted of a widespread cortical activation pattern correlated with emotionally arousing scenes and regionally selective components. The characteristics of these activations were revealed with the use of an open-ended "reverse-correlation" approach, which inverts the conventional analysis by letting the brain signals themselves "pick up" the optimal stimuli for each specialized cortical area.

1 Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
2 Department of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 61390, Israel.
3 Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.



* Present address: Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rafi.malach{at}weizmann.ac.il

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
The Observation and Execution of Actions Share Motor and Somatosensory Voxels in all Tested Subjects: Single-Subject Analyses of Unsmoothed fMRI Data.
V. Gazzola and C. Keysers (2009)
Cereb Cortex 19, 1239-1255
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Functional Connectivity of the Macaque Brain across Stimulus and Arousal States.
S. Moeller, N. Nallasamy, D. Y. Tsao, and W. A. Freiwald (2009)
J. Neurosci. 29, 5897-5909
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Function-based Intersubject Alignment of Human Cortical Anatomy.
M. R. Sabuncu, B. D. Singer, B. Conroy, R. E. Bryan, P. J. Ramadge, and J. V. Haxby (2009)
Cereb Cortex
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Brain Basis of Human Social Interaction: From Concepts to Brain Imaging.
R. Hari and M. V. Kujala (2009)
Physiol Rev 89, 453-479
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
The Arrow of Time: How Does the Brain Represent Natural Temporal Structure?.
F. M. Carvalho and N. Kriegeskorte (2008)
J. Neurosci. 28, 7933-7935
   Full Text »    PDF »
A Hierarchy of Temporal Receptive Windows in Human Cortex.
U. Hasson, E. Yang, I. Vallines, D. J. Heeger, and N. Rubin (2008)
J. Neurosci. 28, 2539-2550
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Beyond Superior Temporal Cortex: Intersubject Correlations in Narrative Speech Comprehension.
S. M. Wilson, I. Molnar-Szakacs, and M. Iacoboni (2008)
Cereb Cortex 18, 230-242
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Electrophysiological signatures of resting state networks in the human brain.
D. Mantini, M. G. Perrucci, C. Del Gratta, G. L. Romani, and M. Corbetta (2007)
PNAS 104, 13170-13175
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
They saw a movie: Long-term memory for an extended audiovisual narrative.
O. Furman, N. Dorfman, U. Hasson, L. Davachi, and Y. Dudai (2007)
Learn. Mem. 14, 457-467
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Enhanced Category Tuning Revealed by Intracranial Electroencephalograms in High-Order Human Visual Areas.
E. Privman, Y. Nir, U. Kramer, S. Kipervasser, F. Andelman, M. Y. Neufeld, R. Mukamel, Y. Yeshurun, I. Fried, and R. Malach (2007)
J. Neurosci. 27, 6234-6242
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
From the Cover: Actor's and observer's primary motor cortices stabilize similarly after seen or heard motor actions.
G. Caetano, V. Jousmaki, and R. Hari (2007)
PNAS 104, 9058-9062
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Systems in the Posterior Cortex of the Human Brain Revealed during Natural Sensory Stimulation.
Y. Golland, S. Bentin, H. Gelbard, Y. Benjamini, R. Heller, Y. Nir, U. Hasson, and R. Malach (2007)
Cereb Cortex 17, 766-777
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
The Timing of Perceptual Decisions for Ambiguous Face Stimuli in the Human Ventral Visual Cortex.
T. J. McKeeff and F. Tong (2007)
Cereb Cortex 17, 669-678
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Sub-exemplar Shape Tuning in Human Face-Related Areas.
S. Gilaie-Dotan and R. Malach (2007)
Cereb Cortex 17, 325-338
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Domain Specificity in Visual Cortex.
P. E. Downing, A. W.-Y. Chan, M. V. Peelen, C. M. Dodds, and N. Kanwisher (2006)
Cereb Cortex 16, 1453-1461
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
The Neural Basis of Human Dance.
S. Brown, M. J. Martinez, and L. M. Parsons (2006)
Cereb Cortex 16, 1157-1167
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
The neural basis of imitation is body part specific..
G. Goldenberg and H.-O. Karnath (2006)
J. Neurosci. 26, 6282-6287
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Transcript Analysis of Early Nodulation Events in Medicago truncatula.
D. P. Lohar, N. Sharopova, G. Endre, S. Penuela, D. Samac, C. Town, K. A.T. Silverstein, and K. A. VandenBosch (2006)
Plant Physiology 140, 221-234
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Coupling Between Neuronal Firing, Field Potentials, and fMRI in Human Auditory Cortex.
R. Mukamel, H. Gelbard, A. Arieli, U. Hasson, I. Fried, and R. Malach (2005)
Science 309, 951-954
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
The chronoarchitecture of the cerebral cortex.
A. Bartels and S. Zeki (2005)
Phil Trans R Soc B 360, 733-750
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)