Reverse Correlation Mapping in Face Patches

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目的目标是探索经验，专业知识和颞叶模块化组织之间的关系。在过去的4年里，该实验室探索了功能解剖学和人脸检测和识别的机制，目前的建议是将这些研究扩展到简单的形状和密集的早期经验在生成解剖学上不同的功能专业领域的作用。大脑中有不同的区域，可以从一个人复制到下一个人，专门用于处理最普遍形式的人类专业知识;例如，面部处理、语音处理和阅读。在人类和猕猴的颞叶中，使用功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）已经确定了面部选择性区域，人类对字母和单词的视觉识别也位于颞叶的同一部分，但更多的是侧面和后部，并且在相反的半球。由于社会互动在灵长类动物中的重要性，我们可以想象自然选择会产生一个面部特异性区域，但考虑到人类使用书面语言只有几千年，而识字最多只有几百年，因此专门用于书写文字的皮层区域不太可能进化出来。大多数人对面孔和符号都有丰富的早期经验，这一事实引发了一个问题：丰富的早期经验是否会导致猴子发展出解剖学上的专门化，以处理它们从未自然使用过的刺激。经过强化训练后，幼年猴子比成年猴子更快地学习符号，并在对它们的反应中发展出更“流畅”的能力。此外，功能磁共振成像显示，青少年，而不是成年人，在他们的颞叶区域选择性地响应学习的符号，但不是视觉上相似的，但不熟悉的符号。这提供了一个独特的机会来研究的生理和功能组织的训练诱导的皮质模块选择简单的形状通常不会经历的猴子，并比较该地区相同的皮质区域在未经训练和后期训练的动物。 单单位电生理学和功能磁共振成像将并行和联合使用，以探索这些训练诱导的符号识别区域的功能专业化，并探索早期与晚期训练动物颞叶相同部分的差异。未训练的，后期训练的，早期训练的动物之间在这一区域的反应特性的差异将阐明如何在发展过程中的经验与成熟梯度相互作用。学习的符号是简单的形状，具有在学习的符号集合中共享的简单特征，因此单个单元生理学应该揭示训练如何影响形状选择细胞联合收割机组合简单特征以产生更复杂的形状选择性的方式。这项拟议中的研究应该能更深入地了解早期的社会和教育经历或剥夺是如何影响大脑发育的。 公共卫生相关性：本研究的目的是通过提供一个关于早期经验如何改变大脑模块化组织的机制性理解，并导致专家流畅的处理特征技能，如面部识别，语言和阅读，从而更深入地了解早期社会和教育经验和剥夺的重要性和不可逆性。对心理健康的影响是巨大的：如果密集的早期社会经验是必要的，以发展功能隔离的脸处理，如果功能隔离是必要的熟练的脸处理，那么早期社会经验的时间和数量可能是至关重要的自闭症谱系障碍的病因和/或补救。早期的生活经历显然会产生长期的影响，我们需要更好地了解某些类型的经验的时间，或者缺乏经验，如何永久地改变大脑处理相应类型信息的方式。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The project goal is to explore the relationship between experience, expertise, and modular organization in the temporal lobe. During the last 4 years this laboratory has explored the functional anatomy and mechanisms of face detection and recognition, and the present proposal is to extend these studies to simple shapes and to the role of intensive early experience in generating anatomically distinct functionally specialized domains. There are distinct regions of the brain, reproducible from one person to the next, specialized for processing the most universal forms of human expertise; e.g., face processing, speech processing, and reading. Face-selective regions in the temporal lobe have been identified using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in both humans and macaques, and in humans visual recognition of letters and words is also localized, to the same part of the temporal lobe, but more lateral and posterior and in the opposite hemisphere. Because of the importance of social interactions in primates, one could imagine a face-specific region being generated by natural selection, but it is unlikely that a cortical region specific for written words could have evolved, given that humans have been using written language for only a few thousand years, and literacy has been widespread for at most a few hundred years. The fact that most people have intensive early experience with both faces and symbols prompted the question of whether intensive early experience could cause monkeys to develop anatomical specializations for processing stimuli they never naturally use. After intensive training, juvenile monkeys learned symbols faster than adult monkeys and developed more "fluency" in responding to them. Furthermore fMRI revealed that juveniles, but not adults, develop regions in their temporal lobes selectively responsive to the learned symbols, but not to visually similar but unfamiliar symbols. This provides the unique opportunity to study the physiology and functional organization of a training-induced cortical module selective for simple shapes not normally experienced by monkeys, and to compare this region to the same cortical region in untrained and late-trained animals. Single-unit electrophysiology and fMRI will be used in parallel and in conjunction to explore the functional specialization in these training-induced symbol recognition regions and to explore the differences in the same parts of the temporal lobe in early versus late trained animals. Differences in response properties in this region between untrained, late trained, and early trained animals will illuminate how experience interacts with maturational gradients during development. The learned symbols are simple shapes, with simple features shared among the learned symbol set, therefore single unit physiology should reveal how training affects the way shape selective cells combine simple features to generate more complex shape selectivity. The proposed study should lead to a deeper understanding of how early social and educational experience or deprivation affects the developing brain. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The goal of the proposed research is to gain a deeper understanding of the importance and irreversibility of early social and educational experience and deprivation by providing a mechanistic understanding of how intensive early experience can modify the modular organization of the brain, and lead to the expert fluent processing characteristic skills like face recognition, language, and reading. The implications for mental health are enormous: if intensive early social experience is necessary to develop functional segregation of face processing, and if functional segregation is necessary for proficient face processing, then the timing and quantity of early social experience may be critical in the etiology and/or remediation of autism spectrum disorders. Early life experiences clearly can have long lasting consequences, and we need to better understand how the timing of some kinds of experience, or the lack thereof, can permanently change how the brain processes corresponding kinds of information.