51
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Mattioni S, Rezk M, Battal C, Bottini R, Cuculiza Mendoza KE, Oosterhof NN, Collignon O. Categorical representation from sound and sight in the ventral occipito-temporal cortex of sighted and blind. eLife 2020; 9:50732. [PMID: 32108572 PMCID: PMC7108866 DOI: 10.7554/elife.50732] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2019] [Accepted: 02/14/2020] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Is vision necessary for the development of the categorical organization of the Ventral Occipito-Temporal Cortex (VOTC)? We used fMRI to characterize VOTC responses to eight categories presented acoustically in sighted and early blind individuals, and visually in a separate sighted group. We observed that VOTC reliably encodes sound categories in sighted and blind people using a representational structure and connectivity partially similar to the one found in vision. Sound categories were, however, more reliably encoded in the blind than the sighted group, using a representational format closer to the one found in vision. Crucially, VOTC in blind represents the categorical membership of sounds rather than their acoustic features. Our results suggest that sounds trigger categorical responses in the VOTC of congenitally blind and sighted people that partially match the topography and functional profile of the visual response, despite qualitative nuances in the categorical organization of VOTC between modalities and groups. The world is full of rich and dynamic visual information. To avoid information overload, the human brain groups inputs into categories such as faces, houses, or tools. A part of the brain called the ventral occipito-temporal cortex (VOTC) helps categorize visual information. Specific parts of the VOTC prefer different types of visual input; for example, one part may tend to respond more to faces, whilst another may prefer houses. However, it is not clear how the VOTC characterizes information. One idea is that similarities between certain types of visual information may drive how information is organized in the VOTC. For example, looking at faces requires using central vision, while looking at houses requires using peripheral vision. Furthermore, all faces have a roundish shape while houses tend to have a more rectangular shape. Another possibility, however, is that the categorization of different inputs cannot be explained just by vision, and is also be driven by higher-level aspects of each category. For instance, how humans use or interact with something may also influence how an input is categorized. If categories are established depending (at least partially) on these higher-level aspects, rather than purely through visual likeness, it is likely that the VOTC would respond similarly to both sounds and images representing these categories. Now, Mattioni et al. have tested how individuals with and without sight respond to eight different categories of information to find out whether or not categorization is driven purely by visual likeness. Each category was presented to participants using sounds while measuring their brain activity. In addition, a group of participants who could see were also presented with the categories visually. Mattioni et al. then compared what happened in the VOTC of the three groups – sighted people presented with sounds, blind people presented with sounds, and sighted people presented with images – in response to each category. The experiment revealed that the VOTC organizes both auditory and visual information in a similar way. However, there were more similarities between the way blind people categorized auditory information and how sighted people categorized visual information than between how sighted people categorized each type of input. Mattioni et al. also found that the region of the VOTC that responds to inanimate objects massively overlapped across the three groups, whereas the part of the VOTC that responds to living things was more variable. These findings suggest that the way that the VOTC organizes information is, at least partly, independent from vision. The experiments also provide some information about how the brain reorganizes in people who are born blind. Further studies may reveal how differences in the VOTC of people with and without sight affect regions typically associated with auditory categorization, and potentially explain how the brain reorganizes in people who become blind later in life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefania Mattioni
- Institute of research in Psychology (IPSY) & Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS) - University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
| | - Mohamed Rezk
- Institute of research in Psychology (IPSY) & Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS) - University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.,Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | - Ceren Battal
- Institute of research in Psychology (IPSY) & Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS) - University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.,Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | - Roberto Bottini
- Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | | | | | - Olivier Collignon
- Institute of research in Psychology (IPSY) & Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS) - University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
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52
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Genetic influence is linked to cortical morphology in category-selective areas of visual cortex. Nat Commun 2020; 11:709. [PMID: 32024844 PMCID: PMC7002610 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14610-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/24/2019] [Accepted: 01/22/2020] [Indexed: 01/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Human visual cortex contains discrete areas that respond selectively to specific object categories such as faces, bodies, and places. A long-standing question is whether these areas are shaped by genetic or environmental factors. To address this question, here we analyzed functional MRI data from an unprecedented number (n = 424) of monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins. Category-selective maps were more identical in MZ than DZ twins. Within each category-selective area, distinct subregions showed significant genetic influence. Structural MRI analysis revealed that the ‘genetic voxels’ were predominantly located in regions with higher cortical curvature (gyral crowns in face areas and sulcal fundi in place areas). Moreover, we found that cortex was thicker and more myelinated in genetic voxels of face areas, while it was thinner and less myelinated in genetic voxels of place areas. This double dissociation suggests a differential development of face and place areas in cerebral cortex. It remains unclear whether the functional organization of the visual cortex is shaped by genetic or environmental factors. Using fMRI in twins (n = 424), these authors show that activation patterns in category-selective areas are heritable, and that the genetic effects in these areas are linked to structural properties of cortical tissue.
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53
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Bottini R, Ferraro S, Nigri A, Cuccarini V, Bruzzone MG, Collignon O. Brain Regions Involved in Conceptual Retrieval in Sighted and Blind People. J Cogn Neurosci 2020; 32:1009-1025. [PMID: 32013684 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01538] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/28/2023]
Abstract
If conceptual retrieval is partially based on the simulation of sensorimotor experience, people with a different sensorimotor experience, such as congenitally blind people, should retrieve concepts in a different way. However, studies investigating the neural basis of several conceptual domains (e.g., actions, objects, places) have shown a very limited impact of early visual deprivation. We approached this problem by investigating brain regions that encode the perceptual similarity of action and color concepts evoked by spoken words in sighted and congenitally blind people. At first, and in line with previous findings, a contrast between action and color concepts (independently of their perceptual similarity) revealed similar activations in sighted and blind people for action concepts and partially different activations for color concepts, but outside visual areas. On the other hand, adaptation analyses based on subjective ratings of perceptual similarity showed compelling differences across groups. Perceptually similar colors and actions induced adaptation in the posterior occipital cortex of sighted people only, overlapping with regions known to represent low-level visual features of those perceptual domains. Early-blind people instead showed a stronger adaptation for perceptually similar concepts in temporal regions, arguably indexing higher reliance on a lexical-semantic code to represent perceptual knowledge. Overall, our results show that visual deprivation does changes the neural bases of conceptual retrieval, but mostly at specific levels of representation supporting perceptual similarity discrimination, reconciling apparently contrasting findings in the field.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Anna Nigri
- Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy
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54
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Abstract
One of the fundamental questions in neuroscience is how brain activity relates to conscious experience. Even though self-consciousness is considered an emergent property of the brain network, a quantum physics-based theory assigns a momentum of consciousness to the single neuron level. In this work, we present a brain self theory from an evolutionary biological perspective by analogy with the immune self. In this scheme, perinatal reactivity to self inputs would guide the selection of neocortical neurons within the subplate, similarly to T lymphocytes in the thymus. Such self-driven neuronal selection would enable effective discrimination of external inputs and avoid harmful "autoreactive" responses. Multiple experimental and clinical evidences for this model are provided. Based on this self tenet, we outline the postulates of the so-called autophrenic diseases, to then make the case for schizophrenia, an archetypic disease with rupture of the self. Implications of this model are discussed, along with potential experimental verification.
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Affiliation(s)
- Silvia Sánchez-Ramón
- Department of Clinical Immunology, IML and IdISSC, Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid, Spain.,Department of Immunology, ENT and Ophthalmology, Complutense University School of Medicine, Madrid, Spain
| | - Florence Faure
- INSERM U932, PSL Research University, Institut Curie, Paris, France
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55
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Magrou L, Barone P, Markov NT, Killackey HP, Giroud P, Berland M, Knoblauch K, Dehay C, Kennedy H. How Areal Specification Shapes the Local and Interareal Circuits in a Macaque Model of Congenital Blindness. Cereb Cortex 2019; 28:3017-3034. [PMID: 29850900 PMCID: PMC6041985 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhy125] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2018] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
There is little understanding of the structural underpinnings of the functional reorganization of the cortex in the congenitally blind human. Taking advantage of the extensive characterization of the macaque visual system, we examine in macaque the influence of congenital blindness resulting from the removal of the retina during in utero development. This effectively removes the normal influence of the thalamus on cortical development leading to an induced hybrid cortex (HC) combining features of primary visual and extrastriate cortex. Retrograde tracers injected in HC reveal a local, intrinsic connectivity characteristic of higher order areas and show that the HC receives a uniquely strong, purely feedforward projection from striate cortex but no ectopic inputs, except from subiculum, and entorhinal cortex. Statistical modeling of quantitative connectivity data shows that HC is relatively high in the cortical hierarchy and receives a reinforced input from ventral stream areas while the overall organization of the functional streams are conserved. The directed and weighted anophthalmic cortical graph from the present study can be used to construct dynamic and structural models. These findings show how the sensory periphery governs cortical phenotype and reveal the importance of developmental arealization for understanding the functional reorganization in congenital blindness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Loïc Magrou
- Univ Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Inserm, Stem Cell and Brain Research Institute U1208, Bron, France
| | - Pascal Barone
- Université De Toulouse Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France.,Centre De Recherche Cerveau & Cognition, CNRS, UMR 5549, Toulouse, France
| | - Nikola T Markov
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, USA
| | - Herbert P Killackey
- Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
| | - Pascale Giroud
- Univ Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Inserm, Stem Cell and Brain Research Institute U1208, Bron, France
| | - Michel Berland
- Univ Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Inserm, Stem Cell and Brain Research Institute U1208, Bron, France
| | - Kenneth Knoblauch
- Univ Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Inserm, Stem Cell and Brain Research Institute U1208, Bron, France
| | - Colette Dehay
- Univ Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Inserm, Stem Cell and Brain Research Institute U1208, Bron, France
| | - Henry Kennedy
- Univ Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Inserm, Stem Cell and Brain Research Institute U1208, Bron, France.,Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, CAS, Shanghai, China
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56
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Naturalistic Audio-Movies and Narrative Synchronize "Visual" Cortices across Congenitally Blind But Not Sighted Individuals. J Neurosci 2019; 39:8940-8948. [PMID: 31548238 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.0298-19.2019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/04/2019] [Revised: 08/26/2019] [Accepted: 08/27/2019] [Indexed: 01/06/2023] Open
Abstract
How does developmental experience, as opposed to intrinsic physiology, shape cortical function? Naturalistic stimuli were used to elicit neural synchrony in individuals blind from birth (n = 18) and those who grew up with sight (n = 18). Blind and blindfolded sighted participants passively listened to three audio-movie clips, an auditory narrative, a sentence shuffled version of the narrative (maintaining language but lacking a plotline), and a version of the narrative backward (lacking both language and plot). For both groups, early auditory cortices were synchronized to a similar degree across stimulus types, whereas higher-cognitive temporoparietal and prefrontal areas were more synchronized by meaningful, temporally extended stimuli (i.e., audio movies and narrative). "Visual" cortices were more synchronized across blind than sighted individuals, but only for audio-movies and narrative. In the blind group, visual cortex synchrony was low for backward speech and intermediate for sentence shuffle. Meaningful auditory stimuli synchronize visual cortices of people born blind.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Naturalistic stimuli engage cognitive processing at many levels. Here, we harnessed this richness to investigate the effect of experience on cortical function. We find that listening to naturalistic audio movies and narrative drives synchronized activity across "visual" cortices of blind, more so than sighted, individuals. Visual cortex synchronization varies with meaningfulness and cognitive complexity. Higher synchrony is observed for temporally extended meaningful stimuli (e.g., movies/narrative), intermediate for shuffled sentences, lowest for time varying complex noise. By contrast, auditory cortex was synchronized equally by meaningful and meaningless stimuli. In congenitally blind individuals most of visual cortex is engaged by meaningful naturalistic stimuli.
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57
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Arcaro MJ, Schade PF, Livingstone MS. Universal Mechanisms and the Development of the Face Network: What You See Is What You Get. Annu Rev Vis Sci 2019; 5:341-372. [PMID: 31226011 PMCID: PMC7568401 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-vision-091718-014917] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
Abstract
Our assignment was to review the development of the face-processing network, an assignment that carries the presupposition that a face-specific developmental program exists. We hope to cast some doubt on this assumption and instead argue that the development of face processing is guided by the same ubiquitous rules that guide the development of cortex in general.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael J Arcaro
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA;
| | - Peter F Schade
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA;
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58
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Thorat S, Proklova D, Peelen MV. The nature of the animacy organization in human ventral temporal cortex. eLife 2019; 8:e47142. [PMID: 31496518 PMCID: PMC6733573 DOI: 10.7554/elife.47142] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2019] [Accepted: 07/17/2019] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
The principles underlying the animacy organization of the ventral temporal cortex (VTC) remain hotly debated, with recent evidence pointing to an animacy continuum rather than a dichotomy. What drives this continuum? According to the visual categorization hypothesis, the continuum reflects the degree to which animals contain animal-diagnostic features. By contrast, the agency hypothesis posits that the continuum reflects the degree to which animals are perceived as (social) agents. Here, we tested both hypotheses with a stimulus set in which visual categorizability and agency were dissociated based on representations in convolutional neural networks and behavioral experiments. Using fMRI, we found that visual categorizability and agency explained independent components of the animacy continuum in VTC. Modeled together, they fully explained the animacy continuum. Finally, clusters explained by visual categorizability were localized posterior to clusters explained by agency. These results show that multiple organizing principles, including agency, underlie the animacy continuum in VTC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sushrut Thorat
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and BehaviourRadboud UniversityNijmegenNetherlands
| | - Daria Proklova
- Brain and Mind InstituteUniversity of Western OntarioLondonCanada
| | - Marius V Peelen
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and BehaviourRadboud UniversityNijmegenNetherlands
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59
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Op de Beeck HP, Pillet I, Ritchie JB. Factors Determining Where Category-Selective Areas Emerge in Visual Cortex. Trends Cogn Sci 2019; 23:784-797. [PMID: 31327671 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2019.06.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2019] [Revised: 06/21/2019] [Accepted: 06/21/2019] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
A hallmark of functional localization in the human brain is the presence of areas in visual cortex specialized for representing particular categories such as faces and words. Why do these areas appear where they do during development? Recent findings highlight several general factors to consider when answering this question. Experience-driven category selectivity arises in regions that have: (i) pre-existing selectivity for properties of the stimulus, (ii) are appropriately placed in the computational hierarchy of the visual system, and (iii) exhibit domain-specific patterns of connectivity to nonvisual regions. In other words, cortical location of category selectivity is constrained by what category will be represented, how it will be represented, and why the representation will be used.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hans P Op de Beeck
- Department of Brain and Cognition and Leuven Brain Institute, KU Leuven, Belgium. @kuleuven.be
| | - Ineke Pillet
- Department of Brain and Cognition and Leuven Brain Institute, KU Leuven, Belgium
| | - J Brendan Ritchie
- Department of Brain and Cognition and Leuven Brain Institute, KU Leuven, Belgium
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60
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Abstract
How does first-person sensory experience contribute to knowledge? Contrary to the suppositions of early empiricist philosophers, people who are born blind know about phenomena that cannot be perceived directly, such as color and light. Exactly what is learned and how remains an open question. We compared knowledge of animal appearance across congenitally blind (n = 20) and sighted individuals (two groups, n = 20 and n = 35) using a battery of tasks, including ordering (size and height), sorting (shape, skin texture, and color), odd-one-out (shape), and feature choice (texture). On all tested dimensions apart from color, sighted and blind individuals showed substantial albeit imperfect agreement, suggesting that linguistic communication and visual perception convey partially redundant appearance information. To test the hypothesis that blind individuals learn about appearance primarily by remembering sighted people's descriptions of what they see (e.g., "elephants are gray"), we measured verbalizability of animal shape, texture, and color in the sighted. Contrary to the learn-from-description hypothesis, blind and sighted groups disagreed most about the appearance dimension that was easiest for sighted people to verbalize: color. Analysis of disagreement patterns across all tasks suggest that blind individuals infer physical features from non-appearance properties of animals such as folk taxonomy and habitat (e.g., bats are textured like mammals but shaped like birds). These findings suggest that in the absence of sensory access, structured appearance knowledge is acquired through inference from ontological kind.
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61
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Powell LJ, Kosakowski HL, Saxe R. Social Origins of Cortical Face Areas. Trends Cogn Sci 2018; 22:752-763. [PMID: 30041864 PMCID: PMC6098735 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2018.06.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2018] [Revised: 05/08/2018] [Accepted: 06/28/2018] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
Recently acquired fMRI data from human and macaque infants provide novel insights into the origins of cortical networks specialized for perceiving faces. Data from both species converge: cortical regions responding preferentially to faces are present and spatially organized early in infancy, although fully selective face areas emerge much later. What explains the earliest cortical responses to faces? We review two proposed mechanisms: proto-organization for simple shapes in visual cortex, and an innate subcortical schematic face template. In addition, we propose a third mechanism: infants choose to look at faces to engage in positively valenced, contingent social interactions. Activity in medial prefrontal cortex during social interactions may, directly or indirectly, guide the organization of cortical face areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lindsey J Powell
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Heather L Kosakowski
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Rebecca Saxe
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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62
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Mid-level visual features underlie the high-level categorical organization of the ventral stream. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2018; 115:E9015-E9024. [PMID: 30171168 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1719616115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 110] [Impact Index Per Article: 18.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Human object-selective cortex shows a large-scale organization characterized by the high-level properties of both animacy and object size. To what extent are these neural responses explained by primitive perceptual features that distinguish animals from objects and big objects from small objects? To address this question, we used a texture synthesis algorithm to create a class of stimuli-texforms-which preserve some mid-level texture and form information from objects while rendering them unrecognizable. We found that unrecognizable texforms were sufficient to elicit the large-scale organizations of object-selective cortex along the entire ventral pathway. Further, the structure in the neural patterns elicited by texforms was well predicted by curvature features and by intermediate layers of a deep convolutional neural network, supporting the mid-level nature of the representations. These results provide clear evidence that a substantial portion of ventral stream organization can be accounted for by coarse texture and form information without requiring explicit recognition of intact objects.
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63
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Vannuscorps G, F Wurm M, Striem-Amit E, Caramazza A. Large-Scale Organization of the Hand Action Observation Network in Individuals Born Without Hands. Cereb Cortex 2018; 29:3434-3444. [DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhy212] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2018] [Revised: 07/12/2018] [Accepted: 08/08/2018] [Indexed: 01/09/2023] Open
Abstract
Abstract
The human high-level visual cortex comprises regions specialized for the processing of distinct types of stimuli, such as objects, animals, and human actions. How does this specialization emerge? Here, we investigated the role of effector-specific visuomotor coupling experience in shaping the organization of the action observation network (AON) as a window on this question. Observed body movements are frequently coupled with corresponding motor codes, e.g., during monitoring one’s own movements and imitation, resulting in bidirectionally connected circuits between areas involved in body movements observation (e.g., of the hand) and the motor codes involved in their execution. If the organization of the AON is shaped by this effector-specific visuomotor coupling, then, it should not form for body movements that do not belong to individuals’ motor repertoire. To test this prediction, we used fMRI to investigate the spatial arrangement and functional properties of the hand and foot action observation circuits in individuals born without upper limbs. Multivoxel pattern decoding, pattern similarity, and univariate analyses revealed an intact hand AON in the individuals born without upper limbs. This suggests that the organization of the AON does not require effector-specific visuomotor coupling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gilles Vannuscorps
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), Università degli Studi di Trento, Rovereto, Italy
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Psychological Sciences Research Institute and Institute of Neuroscience, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
| | - Moritz F Wurm
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), Università degli Studi di Trento, Rovereto, Italy
| | - Ella Striem-Amit
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Alfonso Caramazza
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), Università degli Studi di Trento, Rovereto, Italy
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64
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de Borst AW, de Gelder B. Mental Imagery Follows Similar Cortical Reorganization as Perception: Intra-Modal and Cross-Modal Plasticity in Congenitally Blind. Cereb Cortex 2018; 29:2859-2875. [DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhy151] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2018] [Revised: 05/27/2018] [Accepted: 06/05/2018] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Abstract
Cortical plasticity in congenitally blind individuals leads to cross-modal activation of the visual cortex and may lead to superior perceptual processing in the intact sensory domains. Although mental imagery is often defined as a quasi-perceptual experience, it is unknown whether it follows similar cortical reorganization as perception in blind individuals. In this study, we show that auditory versus tactile perception evokes similar intra-modal discriminative patterns in congenitally blind compared with sighted participants. These results indicate that cortical plasticity following visual deprivation does not influence broad intra-modal organization of auditory and tactile perception as measured by our task. Furthermore, not only the blind, but also the sighted participants showed cross-modal discriminative patterns for perception modality in the visual cortex. During mental imagery, both groups showed similar decoding accuracies for imagery modality in the intra-modal primary sensory cortices. However, no cross-modal discriminative information for imagery modality was found in early visual cortex of blind participants, in contrast to the sighted participants. We did find evidence of cross-modal activation of higher visual areas in blind participants, including the representation of specific-imagined auditory features in visual area V4.
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Affiliation(s)
- A W de Borst
- Department of Computer Science, University College London, London, UK
- Brain and Emotion Lab, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands
| | - B de Gelder
- Department of Computer Science, University College London, London, UK
- Brain and Emotion Lab, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands
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65
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Abstract
Early blindness causes fundamental alterations of neural function across more than 25% of cortex-changes that span the gamut from metabolism to behavior and collectively represent one of the most dramatic examples of plasticity in the human brain. The goal of this review is to describe how the remarkable behavioral and neuroanatomical compensations demonstrated by blind individuals provide insights into the extent, mechanisms, and limits of human brain plasticity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ione Fine
- Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA;
| | - Ji-Min Park
- Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA;
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66
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Motion processing after sight restoration: No competition between visual recovery and auditory compensation. Neuroimage 2018; 167:284-296. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.11.050] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2017] [Revised: 11/16/2017] [Accepted: 11/22/2017] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
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67
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Bracci S, Ritchie JB, de Beeck HO. On the partnership between neural representations of object categories and visual features in the ventral visual pathway. Neuropsychologia 2017; 105:153-164. [PMID: 28619529 PMCID: PMC5680697 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.06.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2016] [Revised: 06/04/2017] [Accepted: 06/12/2017] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
Abstract
A dominant view in the cognitive neuroscience of object vision is that regions of the ventral visual pathway exhibit some degree of category selectivity. However, recent findings obtained with multivariate pattern analyses (MVPA) suggest that apparent category selectivity in these regions is dependent on more basic visual features of stimuli. In which case a rethinking of the function and organization of the ventral pathway may be in order. We suggest that addressing this issue of functional specificity requires clear coding hypotheses, about object category and visual features, which make contrasting predictions about neuroimaging results in ventral pathway regions. One way to differentiate between categorical and featural coding hypotheses is to test for residual categorical effects: effects of category selectivity that cannot be accounted for by visual features of stimuli. A strong method for testing these effects, we argue, is to make object category and target visual features orthogonal in stimulus design. Recent studies that adopt this approach support a feature-based categorical coding hypothesis according to which regions of the ventral stream do indeed code for object category, but in a format at least partially based on the visual features of stimuli.
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