Spatial organization of neural responses to physical and agentive movement dynamics is reflected in intrinsic functional connectivity

Abstract

Making sense of dynamic scenes requires interpreting the movements of inanimate objects governed by external physical forces and the actions of animate agents pursuing endogenous goals. Prior research has identified regions preferring physical or agentive movement, but their spatial organization relative to one another remains unclear. We used fMRI and within-individual analyses to examine neural responses during a motion prediction task in which two dots moved either according to physical forces (physical condition) or in coordinated, self-propelled ways suggesting intentional action (agentive condition). Resting-state data from the same participants independently characterized functional connectivity. Preferential responses to physical and agentive movement were interdigitated across frontal, parietal, and temporal cortices. Regions sharing a preference were intrinsically connected even when widely separated, while regions with opposing preferences belonged to separate networks even when adjacent. Together, these results reveal that differences between physical and agentive dynamics are not confined to local task-evoked preferences but are embedded within the brain's broader functional organization.