Face-Selective Units in Human Ventral Temporal Cortex Reactivate during Free Recall

Research in functional neuroimaging has suggested that category-selective regions of visual cortex, including the ventral temporal cortex (VTC), can be reactivated endogenously through imagery and recall. Face representation in the monkey face-patch system has been well studied and is an attractive domain in which to explore these processes in humans. The VTCs of 8 human subjects (4 female) undergoing invasive monitoring for epilepsy surgery were implanted with microelectrodes. Most (26 of 33) category-selective units showed specificity for face stimuli. Different face exemplars evoked consistent and discriminable responses in the population of units sampled. During free recall, face-selective units preferentially reactivated in the absence of visual stimulation during a 2 s window preceding face recall events. Furthermore, we show that in at least 1 subject, the identity of the recalled face could be predicted by comparing activity preceding recall events to activity evoked by visual stimulation. We show that face-selective units in the human VTC are reactivated endogenously, and present initial evidence that consistent representations of individual face exemplars are specifically reactivated in this manner.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The role of "top-down" endogenous reactivation of native representations in higher sensory areas is poorly understood in humans. We conducted the first detailed single-unit survey of ventral temporal cortex (VTC) in human subjects, showing that, similarly to nonhuman primates, humans encode different faces using different rate codes. Then, we demonstrated that, when subjects recalled and imagined a given face, VTC neurons reactivated with the same rate codes as when subjects initially viewed that face. This suggests that the VTC units not only carry durable representations of faces, but that those representations can be endogenously reactivated via "top-down" mechanisms.