Watching movies during brain scans can help improve the quality of the data that we use to study the brain. Here, we compared the reliability of data collected while people watched several different movies in the scanner compared to when they stared at a cross on a screen (called resting state). We found that reliability is about the same across different movie viewings as it is during rest in most brain areas (which is remarkable). There were also a lot of brain regions in which watching different movies actually had better reliability than rest. SO…we created this app to allow researchers to interactively explore these results. You can click the link below to see the whole brain, and to compare Task and Rest for different reliability-based measures and for each region (app takes time to load).

Data: HCP 7T Release, 109 adult participants, Glasser 360 parcels + 19 subcortical
Movie Run 1: Inception (2010), Social Network (2010), Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
Movie Run 2: Home Alone (1990), Erin Brokavich (2000), Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Publication for study details and please cite if using: Shearer H, et al. “Comparing reliability-based measures of functional connectivity between movie and rest: An ROI-based approach.” 2024, Imaging Neuroscience. In press.