Functional brain network reconfiguration from rest to movie changes across repeated movie-viewing and associates with free recall performance

Motivation: It remains unclear if brain functional reconfiguration from resting state is cognitively relevant for naturalistic conditions. Goal(s): To establish changes in brain functional connectivity (FC) similarity between rest and repeated movie watching and their relation with memory in young adults. Approach: We studied intra- and inter network FC similarity changes across 3 movie-viewing BOLD fMRI sessions, and correlated similarity measures with memory recall scores of one movie. Results: Movies with higher cognitive load and narrative structure evidenced stronger changes in rest-movie functional reconfiguration across sessions; association with recall scores shifted from sensory networks to associative networks over sessions. Higher similarity was more advantageous. Impact: Rest-movie functional reconfiguration lent support to the hypothesis that less reconfiguration may reflect higher information processing efficiency by brain functional networks. It further informs memory encoding and retrieval in naturalistic contexts.