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Cortical Source Analysis of High-Density EEG Recordings in Children
Published on: June 30, 2014
Sparsely-distributed organization of face and limb activations in human ventral temporal cortex
Kevin S Weiner1, Kalanit Grill-Spector
1Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. kweiner@stanford.edu
Neuroimage
|May 12, 2010
Summary
Functional magnetic resonance imaging reveals distinct, non-overlapping clusters for faces and limbs in the ventral temporal cortex (VTC). This sparsely-distributed organization impacts theories of object recognition and neural coding.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Neuroimaging
Background:
- The functional organization of the human ventral temporal cortex (VTC) and neural coding of object categories remain debated.
- Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies suggest both category-selective regions and distributed activation patterns.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the precise spatial organization and overlap of face- and limb-selective activations in the VTC using high-resolution fMRI.
- To determine the nature of neural coding for object categories within the VTC.
Main Methods:
- High-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed.
- General Linear Model (GLM) and Multivoxel Pattern (MVP) analyses were used to analyze brain activity.
- Spatial relationships with retinotopic areas (hV4, VO-1/2, hMT+) and limb-selective activations were used to define face-selective clusters.
Main Results:
- Face- and limb-selective activations were found in largely non-overlapping clusters within the lateral VTC, specifically along the inferior occipital gyrus (IOG), fusiform gyrus (FG), and occipito-temporal sulcus (OTS).
- A gradient of increasing face selectivity and decreasing limb selectivity was observed from the IOG to the middle FG (mFus).
- MVP analyses revealed differential information for faces in lateral VTC compared to medial VTC, supporting a sparsely-distributed coding scheme.
Conclusions:
- The VTC exhibits a sparsely-distributed organization for category representation, characterized by distinct, minimally overlapping clusters for faces and limbs.
- Neural coding involves varying amounts of information across different voxel types (highly-, weakly-, and non-selective).
- Object recognition theories must account for the functional and spatial constraints of this clustered, distributed organization in the VTC.
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