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“Dense Amygdala”: Extensive Complex-valued Functional MRI of the Ventral and Medial Temporal Lobe during Passive Movie Watching in Three Individuals
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  • Published: 24 March 2026

“Dense Amygdala”: Extensive Complex-valued Functional MRI of the Ventral and Medial Temporal Lobe during Passive Movie Watching in Three Individuals

  • J. Michael Tyszka1,
  • Zachary Diamandis2,
  • Umit Keles1,
  • Yue Xu2,
  • Na Yeon Kim1,
  • Wenying Zhu1,
  • Qianying Wu1,
  • David A. Kahn1,2 &
  • …
  • Ralph Adolphs1,2 

Scientific Data , Article number:  (2026) Cite this article

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We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.

Abstract

Dense, individual-level datasets are an important resource for social neuroscience that enable models of brain responses to a wide range of naturalistic features, often investigated with movie fMRI. This data release provides high spatiotemporal resolution 3 Tesla BOLD fMRI data in three healthy participants while viewing four feature-length movies with sound (Grand Budapest Hotel, Forrest Gump, Planet Earth, Jiro Dreams of Sushi; ca. 520 minutes) and a movie trailer composite, together with clip and movie repeats. All movie functional data were acquired with partial brain coverage from an approximately axial slab covering ventral prefrontal and temporal lobes, including the amygdala, with a repetition time of 556 ms and complex-valued image reconstruction. The dataset is released in both unprocessed and minimally preprocessed forms with individual, high quality anatomic templates. Preprocessed fMRI data are provided in both individual template and FreeSurfer average surface spaces. Reference raw data are provided for a conventional face-object functional localizer task. Auxiliary physiological data includes 4-lead ECG waveforms, image-estimated respiratory waveforms and pupillometry. Quality metrics include temporal SNFR maps, high-resolution B0 maps, EPI dropout and head motion parameters for all runs. Physiological noise estimation and cleaning used spatial independent component analysis and custom, per-subject component classification. Annotations for the movies provide automated low-level audiovisual and facial features, as well as emotion ratings from each participant. The presence of presumed BOLD neurovascular responses not associated with physiological or instrumentation noise was confirmed using temporally concatenated spatial independent component analysis (tcsICA).

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Data availability

This dataset is made available under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license through the OpenNeuro data sharing platform as ds00694755.

Code availability

Video presentation scripts implemented in PsychoPy 2021.2.3: https://github.com/adolphslab/DenseAmygdalaRelease.

slabpreproc slab-selective EPI preprocessing pipeline implemented in nipype: https://github.com/adolphslab/slabpreproc.

PhaseRespWave class for respiratory waveform estimation from temporally unwrapped EPI phase channel images: https://github.com/adolphslab/mriphysio.

voxface irreversible deidentification of the face region in structural MRI data: https://github.com/jmtyszka/voxface.

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Acknowledgements

We are greatly indebted to Dr. Lynn K. Paul for all her help administering and reviewing the session questionnaires in Qualtrics. This work was funded by a 2022 Research Grant Award from the T & C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience at Caltech (JMT and RA).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    J. Michael Tyszka, Umit Keles, Na Yeon Kim, Wenying Zhu, Qianying Wu, David A. Kahn & Ralph Adolphs

  2. Division of Biology and Bioengineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Zachary Diamandis, Yue Xu, David A. Kahn & Ralph Adolphs

Authors
  1. J. Michael Tyszka
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  2. Zachary Diamandis
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Contributions

R.A. and J.M.T. conceived the study. J.M.T., Y.X., and R.A. developed the methodology. J.M.T., U.K., and Z.D. developed the software and performed validation. Formal analysis was conducted by J.M.T., U.K., Z.D., N.K., W.Z., Q.W., and D.A.K. J.M.T. carried out the investigation and provided resources. J.M.T. and Z.D. curated the data. J.M.T., R.A., Z.D., and U.K. wrote the original draft and contributed to review and editing. J.M.T., U.K., and Z.D. produced the visualizations. R.A. and J.M.T. supervised the project, managed project administration, and acquired funding.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. Michael Tyszka.

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Tyszka, J.M., Diamandis, Z., Keles, U. et al. “Dense Amygdala”: Extensive Complex-valued Functional MRI of the Ventral and Medial Temporal Lobe during Passive Movie Watching in Three Individuals. Sci Data (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07065-x

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  • Received: 30 October 2025

  • Accepted: 11 March 2026

  • Published: 24 March 2026

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07065-x

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