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Related Experiment Videos

Category-sensitive excitatory and inhibitory processes in human extrastriate cortex.

Truett Allison1, Aina Puce, Gregory McCarthy

  • 1Neuropsychology Laboratory, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, West Haven, Connecticut 06516, USA. truett.allison@yale.edu

Journal of Neurophysiology
|November 9, 2002
PubMed
Summary

Human visual cortex exhibits lateral inhibition between cells recognizing different objects. Stimulus-selective cells are inhibited by non-preferred stimuli, like faces inhibiting word-recognizing cells and vice versa.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Visual Perception

Background:

  • Single-cell recordings in monkeys show stimulus-selective cells can be inhibited by non-preferred stimuli.
  • Previous human studies identified category-specific event-related potentials (ERPs), like the N200 for faces and words.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if inhibitory mechanisms, similar to those in animal models, exist in the human visual cortex.
  • To determine if category-specific cells in humans inhibit responses to non-preferred stimuli.

Main Methods:

  • Surface electrophysiological recordings from the human ventral extrastriate cortex.
  • Analysis of event-related potentials (ERPs) generated by viewing specific stimulus categories (faces, words).

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Main Results:

  • At sites selective for words, faces elicited a positive ERP (P200), and vice versa at face-selective sites.
  • The P200 ERPs suggest hyperpolarizing inhibition, complementing the excitatory N200.
  • Quantitative analysis showed maximal inhibition between face- and word-selective cells.

Conclusions:

  • Evidence suggests lateral inhibition occurs between populations of cells recognizing different object categories in the human extrastriate cortex.
  • Inhibition of category-specific cells by non-preferred stimuli appears to be a general mechanism in human object recognition.