Elbich Daniel B, Scherf Suzanne
Department of Psychology Penn State University, 113 Moore Building, University Park, PA 16802, United States.
Department of Psychology Penn State University, 113 Moore Building, University Park, PA 16802, United States.
Neuroimage. 2017 Feb 15;147:409-422. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.12.042. Epub 2016 Dec 16.
Despite the thousands of papers investigating the neural basis of face perception in both humans and non-human primates, very little is known about how activation within this neural architecture relates to face processing behavior. Here, we investigated individual differences in brain-behavior correspondences within both core and extended regions of the face-processing system in healthy typically developing adults. To do so, we employed a set of behavioral and neural measures to capture a multifaceted perspective on assessing these brain-behavior relations. This included quantifying face and object recognition behavior, the magnitude and size of functional activation within each region, as well as a measure of global activation across regions. We report that face, but not object, recognition behavior was associated with 1) the magnitude of face-selective activation in the left FFA1, 2) larger face-related regions in multiple bilateral face-patches in the fusiform gyri as well as the bilateral anterior temporal lobe and amygdala, and 3) more distributed global face-network activation. In contrast, face recognition behavior was not associated with any measure of object- or place-selective activation. These findings suggest that superior behavior is served by engaging sufficiently large, distributed patches of neural real estate, which might reflect the integration of independent populations of neurons that enables the formation of richer representations.
尽管有成千上万篇论文研究人类和非人类灵长类动物面部感知的神经基础，但对于这种神经结构中的激活如何与面部处理行为相关却知之甚少。在这里，我们研究了健康的典型发育成年人面部处理系统核心区域和扩展区域内脑-行为对应关系的个体差异。为此，我们采用了一系列行为和神经测量方法，从多方面评估这些脑-行为关系。这包括量化面部和物体识别行为、每个区域内功能激活的幅度和大小，以及跨区域的整体激活测量。我们报告称，面部识别行为（而非物体识别行为）与以下因素相关：1）左侧梭状回面孔区1（FFA1）中面部选择性激活的幅度；2）梭状回多个双侧面部区域以及双侧颞叶前部和杏仁核中更大的与面部相关的区域；3）更广泛分布的整体面部网络激活。相比之下，面部识别行为与物体或位置选择性激活的任何测量指标均无关联。这些发现表明，卓越的行为是通过激活足够大的、分布广泛的神经区域来实现的，这可能反映了独立神经元群体的整合，从而能够形成更丰富的表征。
