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Task-based fMRI analysis of the Midnight Scanning Club Coherence-Semantic task

Poster Session F - Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Solana Redway^1,2, Helen Hsiao¹, Todd S. Woodward^1,2; ¹Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, ²BC Mental Health and Addictions Research Institute, Vancouver, Canada

During task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), different cognitive processes reliably elicit distinct spatial and temporal configurations of blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal patterns, referred to as cognitive modes. Data was obtained from the Midnight Scanning Club (MSC), where ten participants each completed ten fMRI sessions while performing the Coherence-Semantic task, which included two conditions: (1) identifying whether an image depicted coherent or random movements (Coherence condition), and (2) determining whether a word was a noun or verb (Semantic condition). Task-timing-related cognitive modes were derived using Constrained Principal Component Analysis for fMRI (fMRI-CPCA), a data-driven dimensionality reduction method. We found a double dissociation between the Focus on Visual Features (FoVF) and Language (LAN) modes. Namely, BOLD changes for FoVF were observed in the Coherence condition, reflecting attention to perceptual aspects of visual stimuli, with no BOLD changes detected in the LAN mode. In contrast, BOLD activation for the LAN mode was strong in the Semantic condition, indicating engagement of regions associated with linguistic processing, but no BOLD changes were detected in the FoVF mode. In contrast, the multiple demand and default modes were involved in both conditions. This double dissociation from the MSC data provides further evidence for the distinct cognitive functions associated with the FoVF and LAN modes, contributing to research on precision medicine, prediction of treatment response, brain stimulation targets, and pre-surgical planning.

Topic Area: ATTENTION: Other