Selectivity for food in human ventral visual cortex.

ABSTRACT: Visual cortex contains regions of selectivity for domains of ecological importance. Food is an evolutionarily critical category whose visual heterogeneity may make the identification of selectivity more challenging. We investigate neural responsiveness to food using natural images combined with large-scale human fMRI. Leveraging the improved sensitivity of modern designs and statistical analyses, we identify two food-selective regions in the ventral visual cortex. Our results are robust across 8 subjects from the Natural Scenes Dataset (NSD), multiple independent image sets and multiple analysis methods. We then test our findings of food selectivity in an fMRI "localizer" using grayscale food images. These independent results confirm the existence of food selectivity in ventral visual cort

SUBMITTER: Jain N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9932019 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature