# MindTuner: Cross-Subject Visual Decoding with Visual Fingerprint and Semantic Correction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.12630 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.12630/

## Key facts

- Cited by 32 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 18 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Apr 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (2019)
- [Unsupervised Learning of Visual Features by Contrasting Cluster Assignments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.09882/) (2020)
- [T2I-Adapter: Learning Adapters to Dig out More Controllable Ability for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.08453/) (2023)
- [GIT: A Generative Image-to-text Transformer for Vision and Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.14100/) (2022)
- [Seeing Beyond the Brain: Conditional Diffusion Model with Sparse Masked Modeling for Vision Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.06956/) (2022)
- [Generic decoding of seen and imagined objects using hierarchical visual features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1510.06479/) (2015)
- [MindEye2: Shared-Subject Models Enable fMRI-To-Image With 1 Hour of Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11207/) (2024)
- [Mind Reader: Reconstructing complex images from brain activities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.01769/) (2022)
- [Decoding Visual Neural Representations by Multimodal Learning of Brain-Visual-Linguistic Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.06756/) (2022)
- [MixCo: Mix-up Contrastive Learning for Visual Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.06300/) (2020)
- [Through their eyes: multi-subject Brain Decoding with simple alignment techniques](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.00627/) (2023)
- [fMRI-PTE: A Large-scale fMRI Pretrained Transformer Encoder for Multi-Subject Brain Activity Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.00342/) (2023)
- [Aligning brain functions boosts the decoding of visual semantics in novel subjects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06467/) (2023)
- [Learning shared neural manifolds from multi-subject FMRI data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.00622/) (2021)
- [Brain-optimized inference improves reconstructions of fMRI brain activity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.07705/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 32)

- [NeuroClips: Towards High-fidelity and Smooth fMRI-to-Video Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.19452/) (2024)
- [The Wisdom of a Crowd of Brains: A Universal Brain Encoder](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12179/) (2024)
- [MindSimulator: Exploring Brain Concept Localization via Synthetic FMRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.02351/) (2025)
- [BrainGuard: Privacy-Preserving Multisubject Image Reconstructions from Brain Activities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.14309/) (2025)
- [SynBrain: Enhancing Visual-to-fMRI Synthesis via Probabilistic Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.10298/) (2025)
- [ZEBRA: Towards Zero-Shot Cross-Subject Generalization for Universal Brain Visual Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.27128/) (2025)
- [A Survey of fMRI to Image Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.16861/) (2025)
- [Neurons: Emulating the Human Visual Cortex Improves Fidelity and Interpretability in fMRI-to-Video Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.11167/) (2025)
- [Brain-IT: Image Reconstruction from fMRI via Brain-Interaction Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.25976/) (2025)
- [Subject-Aware Multi-Granularity Alignment for Zero-Shot EEG-to-Image Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.17782/) (2026)
- [A Cognitive Process-Inspired Architecture for Subject-Agnostic Brain Visual Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.02565/) (2025)
- [Optimal Transport for Brain-Image Alignment: Unveiling Redundancy and Synergy in Neural Information Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.10663/) (2025)
- [Multigranular Evaluation for Brain Visual Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.07993/) (2025)
- [Decoding Visual Neural Representations by Multimodal with Dynamic Balancing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.03433/) (2025)
- [Towards Interpretable Visual Decoding with Attention to Brain Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.23566/) (2025)
- [SynMind: Reducing Semantic Hallucination in fMRI-Based Image Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.17857/) (2026)
- [SemVideo: Reconstructs What You Watch from Brain Activity via Hierarchical Semantic Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.21819/) (2026)
- [Duala: Dual-Level Alignment of Subjects and Stimuli for Cross-Subject fMRI Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.07625/) (2026)
- [Bridging Brain and Semantics: A Hierarchical Framework for Semantically Enhanced fMRI-to-Video Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.14569/) (2026)
- [FedMinds: Privacy-Preserving Personalized Brain Visual Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02044/) (2024)
- [SEED: Towards More Accurate Semantic Evaluation for Visual Brain Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06437/) (2025)
- [Perception Activator: An intuitive and portable framework for brain cognitive exploration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02311/) (2025)
- [NeuroSwift: A Lightweight Cross-Subject Framework for fMRI Visual Reconstruction of Complex Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.02266/) (2025)
- [Seeing Through the Brain: New Insights from Decoding Visual Stimuli with fMRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.16196/) (2025)
- [Moving Beyond Diffusion: Hierarchy-to-Hierarchy Autoregression for fMRI-to-Image Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.22335/) (2025)
- [The Pictorial Cortex: Zero-Shot Cross-Subject fMRI-to-Image Reconstruction via Compositional Latent Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.15071/) (2026)
- [MindPilot: Closed-loop Visual Stimulation Optimization for Brain Modulation with EEG-guided Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.10552/) (2026)
- [StableMind: Source-Free Cross-Subject fMRI Decoding with Regularized Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.02586/) (2026)
- [MindAdapter: Few-Shot Parameter-Efficient Residual Calibration of Cross-Subject Brain-to-Visual Decoding Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.24679/) (2026)
- [Brain-IT-VQA: From Brain Signals to Answers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.29588/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Decoding natural visual scenes from brain activity has flourished, with extensive research in single-subject tasks and, however, less in cross-subject tasks. Reconstructing high-quality images in cross-subject tasks is a challenging problem due to profound individual differences between subjects and the scarcity of data annotation. In this work, we proposed MindTuner for cross-subject visual decoding, which achieves high-quality and rich semantic reconstructions using only 1 hour of fMRI training data benefiting from the phenomena of visual fingerprint in the human visual system and a novel fMRI-to-text alignment paradigm. Firstly, we pre-train a multi-subject model among 7 subjects and fine-tune it with scarce data on new subjects, where LoRAs with Skip-LoRAs are utilized to learn the visual fingerprint. Then, we take the image modality as the intermediate pivot modality to achieve fMRI-to-text alignment, which achieves impressive fMRI-to-text retrieval performance and corrects fMRI-to-image reconstruction with fine-tuned semantics. The results of both qualitative and quantitative analyses demonstrate that MindTuner surpasses state-of-the-art cross-subject visual decoding models on the Natural Scenes Dataset (NSD), whether using training data of 1 hour or 40 hours.