Dataset Information

Parallel processing of face and house stimuli by V1 and specialized visual areas: a magnetoencephalographic (MEG) study.

ABSTRACT: We used easily distinguishable stimuli of faces and houses constituted from straight lines, with the aim of learning whether they activate V1 on the one hand, and the specialized areas that are critical for the processing of faces and houses on the other, with similar latencies. Eighteen subjects took part in the experiment, which used magnetoencephalography (MEG) coupled to analytical methods to detect the time course of the earliest responses which these stimuli provoke in these cortical areas. Both categories of stimuli activated V1 and areas of the visual cortex outside it at around 40 ms after stimulus onset, and the amplitude elicited by face stimuli was significantly larger than that elicited by house stimuli. These results suggest that "low-level" and "high-level" features of form stimuli are processed in parallel by V1 and visual areas outside it. Taken together with our previous results on the processing of simple geometric forms (Shgihara and Zeki, 2013; Shigihara and Zeki, 2014), the present ones reinforce the conclusion that parallel processing is an important component in the strategy used by the brain to process and construct forms.

SUBMITTER: Shigihara Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4224090 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Parallel processing of face and house stimuli by V1 and specialized visual areas: a magnetoencephalographic (MEG) study.

Shigihara Yoshihito Y Zeki Semir S

Frontiers in human neuroscience 20141107

We used easily distinguishable stimuli of faces and houses constituted from straight lines, with the aim of learning whether they activate V1 on the one hand, and the specialized areas that are critical for the processing of faces and houses on the other, with similar latencies. Eighteen subjects took part in the experiment, which used magnetoencephalography (MEG) coupled to analytical methods to detect the time course of the earliest responses which these stimuli provoke in these cortical areas ...[more]

PMID: 25426050

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundVisual abnormality is a common sensory impairment in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which may cause behavioral problems. However, only a few studies exist on the neural features corresponding to the visual symptoms in ASD. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between cortical responses to visual stimuli and visual abnormality to examine the neurophysiological mechanisms of the visual abnormality in ASD.MethodsTwenty-two high-functioning children with ASD (10.95 ± 2.01 years old) and 23 age-matched typically developing (TD) children (10.13 ± 2.80 years old) participated in this study. We measured the cortical responses (i.e., activated intensity and attenuation ratio) elicited by the Original visual image and other two types of bright images (the Dot noise or Blind image, which includes overlapped particles onto the Original image or the enhanced-brightness version of the Original image, respectively) using magnetoencephalography.ResultsThe severity of visual abnormalities was significantly associated with behavioral problems in children with ASD. In addition, we found the increased cortical activation in response to the Original image in the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and middle temporal gyrus in children with ASD. However, there were no inter-group differences in the primary visual and medial orbitofrontal cortices. Furthermore, when we compared cortical responses according to the type of images, children with ASD showed lesser attenuation of the activated intensities than children with TD in response to the bright images compared with the Original image in the right SMG. These attenuation ratios (Dot noise/Original and Blind/Original) were also associated with the severity of visual abnormalities.ConclusionsOur results show that dysfunction of stimulus-driven neural suppression plays a crucial role in the neural mechanism of visual abnormality in children with ASD. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first magnetoencephalography study to demonstrate the association between the severity of visual abnormality and lower attenuation ratios in children with ASD. Our results contribute to the knowledge of the mechanisms underlying visual abnormality in children with ASD, and may therefore lead to more effective diagnosis and earlier intervention.

Dataset Information

Parallel processing of face and house stimuli by V1 and specialized visual areas: a magnetoencephalographic (MEG) study.

Publications

Parallel processing of face and house stimuli by V1 and specialized visual areas: a magnetoencephalographic (MEG) study.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets