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Open Imaging Index
MRI Brain

Persuasive Healthy Eating Call fMRI

Deciphering the neural responses to a naturalistic persuasive message

Brain MRI and narrative-listening fMRI of healthy young adults who listened to a persuasive healthy eating narrative between two blocks of a food bidding task, recorded in Moscow to study neural synchrony in persuaded and unpersuaded listeners.

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Overview

This OpenNeuro release (ds005518) contains the MRI data of a study at HSE University on how the brain processes a persuasive health message under natural listening conditions. Participants heard a first-person narrative by a nutritionist about the health risks of sugar while in the scanner. Before and after the narrative they placed bids on sugar-containing, sugar-free and non-edible products, and the change in their bids was used to label each person as persuaded or unpersuaded. The study compared intersubject correlation and connectivity between the two groups. The data are shared under a CC0 waiver, and the analysis code is on GitHub.

Composition

The release holds 50 healthy, right-handed adults aged 18 to 32 years (25 women, 25 men). The paper describes them as free of psychiatric, neurological and metabolic illness and eating disorders, not on prescribed medication, and people who eat sweets. Each participant has one T1-weighted anatomical image and one functional run with an events file that marks the onset of the narrative and of its 13 arguments; bidding trials are not coded in the events files. The participants table lists age, sex and the persuasion group from a median split of the bid change for sugar-free products (24 persuaded, 26 unpersuaded).

Acquisition

All scans come from one 3 T Siemens Prisma with a 20-channel head coil at the Research Center of Neurology in Moscow. The functional data are gradient-echo EPI with a repetition time of 2 s, an echo time of 21 ms, 44 axial slices and 2 mm voxels with a 0.5 mm gap. A run averaged about 1,239 volumes, roughly 41 minutes, and spans both bidding blocks and the narrative. The anatomical image is a sagittal MPRAGE. Images were converted from DICOM with dcm2niix and no derivatives are included.

Known limitations

  • Small single-site sample of young, healthy adults, all described in the paper as white.
  • The persuasion groups come from a median split, not from an external criterion.
  • The T1-weighted parameters printed in the paper (TR 1,900 ms, TE 2.47 ms) differ from the image sidecars (TR 2.3 s, TE 2.98 ms); the sidecars describe the released files.
  • Participants were asked to fast for at least 3 hours before scanning, which may affect food-related responses.

Cohort

Aggregate numbers from the sources below. Bars are relative to the 50 subjects.

Sex

  • Female 25 50%
  • Male 25 50%

Materials and Methods: Participants in Ntoumanis et al. 2024, Deciphering the neural responses to a naturalistic persuasive message (PNAS)

Contrast / sequence

Groups can overlap

  • T1-weighted 50 100%
  • BOLD fMRI 50 100%

From BIDS file tree and JSON sidecars of ds005518 (CC0), raw NIfTI files under sub-*/ counted per suffix

Scanner vendor

  • Siemens Healthineers 50 100%

Materials and Methods: MRI Data Acquisition in Ntoumanis et al. 2024, Deciphering the neural responses to a naturalistic persuasive message (PNAS)

Country

  • Russia 50 100%

sub-*_T1w.json InstitutionAddress in BIDS file tree and JSON sidecars of ds005518 (CC0), raw NIfTI files under sub-*/ counted per suffix

Age

mean 21.4, range 18 to 32

0
10
20
30
33
10-1920-2930-39

age in participants.tsv of ds005518 (CC0), counted per row; Materials and Methods: Participants in Ntoumanis et al. 2024, Deciphering the neural responses to a naturalistic persuasive message (PNAS)

Condition

Groups can overlap

  • Healthy control 50 100%

Materials and Methods: Participants in Ntoumanis et al. 2024, Deciphering the neural responses to a naturalistic persuasive message (PNAS)

Field strength

  • 3 T 50 100%

Materials and Methods: MRI Data Acquisition in Ntoumanis et al. 2024, Deciphering the neural responses to a naturalistic persuasive message (PNAS)

Age by sex

Reported cross table. Missing cells were not published (fewer than 10 or not reported).

Female Male
  • 17
    20-29
    16

sex and age in participants.tsv of ds005518 (CC0), counted per row

Contrast combinations

How many subjects have exactly each set of contrasts.

T1wboldSubjects with exactly this set
50

From BIDS file tree and JSON sidecars of ds005518 (CC0), raw NIfTI files under sub-*/ counted per suffix

License and access

Our reading of the license, not legal advice. Before you use the data, read the original license and confirm that your use is allowed. We take no responsibility for how you use a dataset. Full disclaimer

Access
Open download

Download without an account

Access page

Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Universal

Public domain dedication. Do anything with the data, including commercial use, without asking and without having to give credit.

dataset_description.json of snapshot 1.0.1 states "License" CC0.

Original license text Version read: 1.0 Checked 2026-10-07

What you can do

  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes

What you can share

  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes

What you must do

  • No
  • Share alike No
  • No
  • No
  • Manuscript review No
  • Release code No
  • Return results No
  • Delete after use No

Limits

  • No
  • Location limits No

Citation

Ntoumanis I, Sheronova J, Davydova A, Dolgaleva M, Jaaskelainen IP, Kosonogov V, Shestakova AN, Klucharev V. Deciphering the neural responses to a naturalistic persuasive message. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024;121(43):e2401317121. doi:10.1073/pnas.2401317121

Sources

Every number on this page comes from one of these documents. Each chart names the table or page it is taken from. The raw numbers are in stats.csv.