Reverse Correlation Mapping in Face Patches

描述（由申请人提供）：项目目标是探索经验、专业知识和颞叶模块化组织之间的关系。在过去的4年里，该实验室探索了面部检测和识别的功能解剖学和机制，目前的建议是将这些研究扩展到简单的形状，以及在产生解剖学上不同的功能专业领域中的密集早期经验的作用。大脑有不同的区域，每个人都可以复制，专门处理最普遍的人类专业知识；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区域，人类对字母和单词的视觉识别也定位在颞叶的同一部分，但更多的是侧向和后部，在相反的半球。由于灵长类动物社会互动的重要性，人们可以想象，自然选择产生了一个特定于面部的区域，但考虑到人类使用书面语言只有几千年的历史，识字最多只有几百年的时间，一个特定于书面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密集的早期经验，这一事实引发了这样一个问题：密集的早期经验是否会导致猴子发展出处理它们从未自然使用过的刺激的解剖专一性。经过强化训练，幼猴学习符号的速度比成年猴子快，反应也更“流畅”。此外，功能磁共振成像显示，幼鱼的颞叶区域对习得的符号有选择性反应，而对视觉上相似但不熟悉的符号没有选择性反应。这为研究训练诱导的皮层模块的生理学和功能组织提供了独特的机会，该模块可选择猴子通常无法体验的简单形状，并将该区域与未训练和训练较晚的动物的相同皮质区域进行比较。单单元电生理学和功能磁共振成像将并行并结合使用，以探索这些训练诱导的符号识别区域的功能专业化，并探索早期和晚期训练动物颞叶相同部分的差异。未训练、后期训练和早期训练的动物在这一区域的反应特性的差异将阐明在发育过程中经验如何与成熟梯度相互作用。学习到的符号是简单的形状，在学习到的符号集中具有简单的特征，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组合简单特征以产生更复杂的形状选择的方式。这项提议的研究应该能让我们更深入地了解早期的社会和教育经历或剥夺如何影响发育中的大脑。

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.