Cortical gradients during naturalistic processing are hierarchical and modality-specific

Abstract

Understanding cortical topographic organization and how it supports complex perceptual and cognitive processes is a fundamental question in neuroscience. Previous work has characterized functional gradients that demonstrate large-scale principles of cortical organization. How these gradients are modulated by rich ecological stimuli remains unknown. Here, we utilize naturalistic stimuli via movie-fMRI to assess macroscale functional organization. We identify principal movie gradients that delineate separate hierarchies anchored in sensorimotor, visual, and auditory/language areas. At the opposite/heteromodal end of these perception-to-cognition axes, we find a more central role for the frontoparietal network along with the default network. Even across different movie stimuli, movie gradients demonstrated good reliability, suggesting that these hierarchies reflect a brain state common across different naturalistic conditions. The relative position of brain areas within movie gradients showed stronger and more numerous correlations with cognitive behavioral scores compared to resting state gradients. Together, these findings provide an ecologically valid representation of the principles underlying cortical organization while the brain is active and engaged in multimodal, dynamic perceptual and cognitive processing. HighlightsO_LIMovie-fMRI reveals novel, more granular principles of hierarchical cortical organization C_LIO_LITop movie gradients delineate three separate perception-to-cognition hierarchies C_LIO_LIA distinctive third gradient in movie-watching is anchored by auditory/language regions C_LIO_LIGradient scores demonstrate good reliability even across different movie stimuli C_LIO_LIMovie gradients yield stronger correlations with behavior relative to resting state gradients C_LI