MindSimulator: Exploring Brain Concept Localization via Synthetic FMRI

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Bao, Guangyin, Zhang, Qi, Gong, Zixuan, Wu, Zhuojia, Miao, Duoqian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Bao, Guangyin
Zhang, Qi
Gong, Zixuan
Wu, Zhuojia
Miao, Duoqian
author_facet Bao, Guangyin
Zhang, Qi
Gong, Zixuan
Wu, Zhuojia
Miao, Duoqian
contents Concept-selective regions within the human cerebral cortex exhibit significant activation in response to specific visual stimuli associated with particular concepts. Precisely localizing these regions stands as a crucial long-term goal in neuroscience to grasp essential brain functions and mechanisms. Conventional experiment-driven approaches hinge on manually constructed visual stimulus collections and corresponding brain activity recordings, constraining the support and coverage of concept localization. Additionally, these stimuli often consist of concept objects in unnatural contexts and are potentially biased by subjective preferences, thus prompting concerns about the validity and generalizability of the identified regions. To address these limitations, we propose a data-driven exploration approach. By synthesizing extensive brain activity recordings, we statistically localize various concept-selective regions. Our proposed MindSimulator leverages advanced generative technologies to learn the probability distribution of brain activity conditioned on concept-oriented visual stimuli. This enables the creation of simulated brain recordings that reflect real neural response patterns. Using the synthetic recordings, we successfully localize several well-studied concept-selective regions and validate them against empirical findings, achieving promising prediction accuracy. The feasibility opens avenues for exploring novel concept-selective regions and provides prior hypotheses for future neuroscience research.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_02351
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MindSimulator: Exploring Brain Concept Localization via Synthetic FMRI
Bao, Guangyin
Zhang, Qi
Gong, Zixuan
Wu, Zhuojia
Miao, Duoqian
Neurons and Cognition
Artificial Intelligence
Concept-selective regions within the human cerebral cortex exhibit significant activation in response to specific visual stimuli associated with particular concepts. Precisely localizing these regions stands as a crucial long-term goal in neuroscience to grasp essential brain functions and mechanisms. Conventional experiment-driven approaches hinge on manually constructed visual stimulus collections and corresponding brain activity recordings, constraining the support and coverage of concept localization. Additionally, these stimuli often consist of concept objects in unnatural contexts and are potentially biased by subjective preferences, thus prompting concerns about the validity and generalizability of the identified regions. To address these limitations, we propose a data-driven exploration approach. By synthesizing extensive brain activity recordings, we statistically localize various concept-selective regions. Our proposed MindSimulator leverages advanced generative technologies to learn the probability distribution of brain activity conditioned on concept-oriented visual stimuli. This enables the creation of simulated brain recordings that reflect real neural response patterns. Using the synthetic recordings, we successfully localize several well-studied concept-selective regions and validate them against empirical findings, achieving promising prediction accuracy. The feasibility opens avenues for exploring novel concept-selective regions and provides prior hypotheses for future neuroscience research.
title MindSimulator: Exploring Brain Concept Localization via Synthetic FMRI
topic Neurons and Cognition
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.02351