Increased Segregation in Functional Connectivity Networks When Watching Unpleasant Arousing Videos: A Generalized Psychophysiological Interaction Analysis

Background: Properties of functional connectivity (FC), such as network integration and segregation, are shown to be associated with various human behaviors. For example, Godwin et al. and Sun et al. found increased integration with attention allocation, whereas Cohen and D'Esposito and Shine et al. observed increased segregation with simple motor tasks. The current study investigated how viewing video clips with different valence and arousal influenced integration–segregation properties in task-based FC networks. Methods: We analyzed an open dataset collected by Kim et al. We performed a generalized psychophysiological interaction (gPPI) analysis paired with network analysis and community detection to investigate changes in brain network dynamics when people watched four types of videos that differed by affective valence (unpleasant or pleasant) and arousal (arousing or calm). Results: Results showed that unpleasant arousing videos produced greater FC deviation from the baseline (task-induced FC deviation [tiFCd]) and perturbed the brain into a more segregated state than other kinds of video. Increased segregation was only observed in association systems, not sensorimotor systems. Discussion: Unpleasant arousing content perturbed the brain to a functionally distinct state from the other three types of affective videos. We suggest that the change in brain state was related to people disengaging from the unpleasant arousing content or, alternatively, staying alert while exposed to unpleasant arousing stimuli. The study also added to our understanding of how combining task-based gPPI analysis with community detection methods and network segregation measures can advance our knowledge of the links between behavior and brain state changes. Impact statement Network integration and segregation is an important property of the human brain. We address the question of how affective stimuli influence brain dynamics from a functional connectivity (FC) network integration–segregation perspective. By conducting a whole-brain generalized psychophysiological interaction (gPPI) analysis paired with community detection methods, we found that highly aversive video content induced significant FC changes and perturbed the brain to a more segregated state.