Functional Specialization and Convergence in the Occipito-temporal Cortex Supporting Haptic and Visual Identification of Human Faces and Body Parts: An fMRI Study
Functional Specialization and Convergence in the Occipito-temporal Cortex Supporting Haptic and Visual Identification of Human Faces and Body Parts: An fMRI Study
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DOI：
10.1162/jocn.2009.21115
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发表时间：
2009-10-01
影响因子：
3.2
通讯作者：
Lederman, Susan J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kitada, Ryo;Johnsrude, Ingrid S.;Lederman, Susan J.
当视觉不可用时，人类可以通过触摸非常好地识别普通物体。尽管它的重要性，以彻底了解人类的物体识别，这一主题的神经科学研究一直相对被忽视。迄今为止，少数已发表的研究已经解决了非生物物体的触觉识别。我们现在专注于人体的触觉识别，这是触摸的一个特别突出的对象类别。神经影像学研究表明，枕颞叶皮层的区域专门用于面部的视觉感知（梭形面部区域，FFA）和其他身体部位（纹外体区域，EBA）。当这些身体的组成部分被触觉识别时，相同的类别敏感区域是否被激活？在这里，我们使用功能性磁共振成像来比较大脑组织的触觉和视觉识别人体部位。16名受试者分别使用视觉和触觉识别面部、手、脚和非生物控制对象的样本。我们确定了两个离散区域内的梭状回（FFA和触觉面部区域），每个都是敏感的触觉和视觉呈现的面孔，然而，这两个地区显着不同的反应模式。同样，两个区域内的外侧枕颞区（EBA和触觉身体区域），每个敏感的身体部位在这两种方式，虽然反应模式不同。因此，虽然梭状回和外侧枕颞叶皮层出现的babitmodality-independent，类别敏感的活动，我们的研究结果也表明一定程度的功能专业化相关的感觉方式在这些结构。
Humans can recognize common objects by touch extremely well whenever vision is unavailable. Despite its importance to a thorough understanding of human object recognition, the neuroscientific study of this topic has been relatively neglected. To date, the few published studies have addressed the haptic recognition of nonbiological objects. We now focus on haptic recognition of the human body, a particularly salient object category for touch. Neuroimaging studies demonstrate that regions of the occipito-temporal cortex are specialized for visual perception of faces (fusiform face area, FFA) and other body parts (extrastriate body area, EBA). Are the same category-sensitive regions activated when these components of the body are recognized haptically? Here, we use fMRI to compare brain organization for haptic and visual recognition of human body parts. Sixteen subjects identified exemplars of faces, hands, feet, and nonbiological control objects using vision and haptics separately. We identified two discrete regions within the fusiform gyrus (FFA and the haptic face region) that were each sensitive to both haptically and visually presented faces; however, these two regions differed significantly in their response patterns. Similarly, two regions within the lateral occipito-temporal area (EBA and the haptic body region) were each sensitive to body parts in both modalities, although the response patterns differed. Thus, although the fusiform gyrus and the lateral occipito-temporal cortex appear to exhibitmodality-independent, category-sensitive activity, our results also indicate a degree of functional specialization related to sensory modality within these structures.