Climate Framed: Functional Brain Network Reconfigurations During News Sense-Making

Abstract

Recent advances in neuroimaging and computational modelling have enabled researchers to study the brain as a complex network. Graph theory, in particular, has emerged as a key methodological framework in network neuroscience [1]. By characterising brain connectivity as an abstract system composed of interconnected nodes and edges, brain graphs capture the integration, segregation, and resilience patterns manifest in neural activity, offering insights into functional organisation. Building on this foundation, my project investigates dynamic changes in functional brain networks across subtly differing conditions while maintaining constant task modalities. Specifically, I examine how different framings of climate news modulate brain network organisation.

I argue that graph measures have the potential to be operationalised within enactivist theory [2]. In enactivist terms, cognition is not a passive representation of an external world but emerges through ongoing embodied engagement with an environment that is continually co-constituted. Hence, sense-making denotes how organisms relate to their world in terms of meaning. Even without direct experience, climate narratives can evoke affective and conceptual responses by shaping how individuals situate themselves [3]. I propose that these shifts in sense-making are partly reflected in reconfigurations of whole-brain functional networks, with global graph metrics serving as measurable signatures of this process.

Data will be gathered as part of a pre-designed fMRI study involving approximately 60 participants aged 20 to 30, conducted within the large-scale REASON project investigating the interplay between climate reporting and social impact. Participants will be exposed to climate-related written statements equal in length but varying in framing: neutral, solution-oriented, and threat-oriented, preceded by a single pre-task and post-task resting-state scan. Functional connectivity (FC) will be computed using the publicly available XCP-D pipeline by correlating time series data across 200 predefined brain parcels via the Schaefer atlas. Resulting FC matrices will be analysed using the Brain Connectivity Toolbox, focusing on three global measures: global efficiency, small-worldness, and hub resilience. To capture temporal dynamics, a sliding-window method will be applied.

The main research question guiding this project asks how threat versus solution-oriented framings influence the overall configuration of functional brain networks during active engagement with news and post-task resting state. Although the study remains exploratory, potential hypotheses include greater segregation and lower small-worldness under threat frames and enhanced integration under solution frames. Beyond quantifying network changes, I aim to interpret them through the lens of enactive sense-making as shifts in context-sensitive couplings rather than in internal representations. By operationalising enactivist concepts within network neuroscience, I aim to contribute to an interdisciplinary understanding of how climate information becomes meaningful at the level of whole-brain organisation.

References

[1] F. V. Farahani, W. Karwowski, and N. R. Lighthall, “Application of Graph Theory for Identifying Connectivity Patterns in Human Brain Networks: A Systematic Review,” Front. Neurosci., vol. 13, p. 585, Jun. 2019. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2019.00585.

[2] E. A. Di Paolo, T. Buhrmann, and X. Barandiaran, Sensorimotor Life: an enactive proposal, 1^st edition. Oxford: OUP Oxford, 2017.

[3] G. Colombetti, The Feeling Body: Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind. The MIT Press, 2014. doi: 10.7551/mitpress/9780262019958.001.0001.