Functional anatomy and neural mechanisms of face recognition in macaque monkeys using fMRI, electrophysiology, and microstimulation.

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The project goal is to explore the neural mechanisms of face detection and recognition in alert macaques. Two findings motivate the current proposal. First, using fMRI in alert macaques, we previously identified 3 brain regions that show increased blood flow to faces compared to non-face objects. These regions likely constitute a hierarchy for face processing, since they are arranged along a caudal-rostral axis in the temporal lobe. Second, our fMRI-guided single-unit recordings revealed that in the largest of these regions, an astonishing 97% of the neurons are face selective. These two discoveries make possible unprecedented access to several homogeneous populations of face cells, and open a gold mine of new experiments to understand the detailed sequence of steps by which the brain detects and recognizes faces. We propose to systematically characterize the visual transformations occurring along this face patch hierarchy. Our three specific aims are to: 1) characterize the visual tuning properties of neurons in each of the three fMRI-identified face patches, 2) determine how and where invariance to position, size, orientation, illumination, and view angle are generated within the face-processing hierarchy, and 3) map the anatomical inputs and outputs to each of the face patches.