Functional Connectivity during Visual-Auditory Associative Learning with Submillimeter Fmri at 7T: Comparing Pearson and Pca-Based Partial Correlation in Beta-Series Analysis

Predictive coding (PC) describes the cognitive process by which the brain infers information about the external environment by matching incoming sensory input with topdown predictions from internal models of the world. The hippocampus is thought to play a central role in generating predictions from past experiences and transmitting them to sensory cortices through hierarchical feedback signals. However, hippocampal-cortical functional connectivity (FC) during audiovisual associative learning remains poorly characterized. To close this gap, we applied a task-based functional connectivity (t-FC) analysis using Beta-Series Correlation on 7T fMRI data. We compared standard Pearson correlation with a PCA-based partial correlation approach to distinguish mediated associations from direct functional interactions. Preliminary results revealed hierarchical connectivity patterns consistent with PC, highlighting direct hippocampal-cortical and temporal-frontal interactions supporting cross-modal prediction.