Neural Bases and Development of Face Recognition in Autism

CNS Spectrums ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-44,57-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Marcus ◽  
Charles A. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural System ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Object Processing ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Further Development

AbstractThis paper critically examines the literature on face recognition in autism, including a discussion of the neural correlates of this ability. The authors begin by selectively reviewing the behavioral and cognitive neuroscience research on whether faces are represented by a “special” behavioral and neural system—one distinct from object processing. The authors then offer a neuroconstructivist model that attempts to account for the robust finding that certain regions in the inferior temporal cortex are recruited in the service of face recognition. This is followed by a review of the evidence supporting the view that face recognition is atypical in individuals with autism. This face-recognition deficit may indicate a continued risk for the further development of social impairments. The authors conclude by speculating on the role of experience in contributing to this atypical developmental pattern and its implications for normal development of face processing.

scholarly journals The Anatomy of Object Processing: The Role of Anteromedial Temporal Cortex

2005 ◽  
Vol 58 (3-4b) ◽  
pp. 361-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Bright ◽  
Helen E. Moss ◽  
Emmanuel A. Stamatakis ◽  
Lorraine K. Tyler
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Perirhinal Cortex ◽  
Object Processing ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Temporal Structures ◽  
The Brain

How objects are represented and processed in the brain remains a key issue in cognitive neuroscience. We have developed a conceptual structure account in which category-specific semantic deficits emerge due to differences in the structure and content of concepts rather than from explicit divisions of conceptual knowledge in separate stores. The primary claim is that concepts associated with particular categories (e.g., animals, tools) differ in the number and type of properties and the extent to which these properties are correlated with each other. In this review, we describe recent neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies in which we have extended our theoretical account by incorporating recent claims about the neuroanatomical basis of feature integration and differentiation that arise from research into hierarchical object processing streams in nonhuman primates and humans. A clear picture has emerged in which the human perirhinal cortex and neighbouring anteromedial temporal structures appear to provide the neural infrastructure for making fine-grained discriminations among objects, suggesting that damage within the perirhinal cortex may underlie the emergence of category-specific semantic deficits in brain-damaged patients.

N250 ERP Correlates of the Acquisition of Face Representations across Different Images

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-641 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen M. Kaufmann ◽  
Stefan R. Schweinberger ◽  
A. Mike Burton
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Brain Research ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Video Clips ◽  
The Face

We used ERPs to investigate neural correlates of face learning. At learning, participants viewed video clips of unfamiliar people, which were presented either with or without voices providing semantic information. In a subsequent face-recognition task (four trial blocks), learned faces were repeated once per block and presented interspersed with novel faces. To disentangle face from image learning, we used different images for face repetitions. Block effects demonstrated that engaging in the face-recognition task modulated ERPs between 170 and 900 msec poststimulus onset for learned and novel faces. In addition, multiple repetitions of different exemplars of learned faces elicited an increased bilateral N250. Source localizations of this N250 for learned faces suggested activity in fusiform gyrus, similar to that found previously for N250r in repetition priming paradigms [Schweinberger, S. R., Pickering, E. C., Jentzsch, I., Burton, A. M., & Kaufmann, J. M. Event-related brain potential evidence for a response of inferior temporal cortex to familiar face repetitions. Cognitive Brain Research, 14, 398–409, 2002]. Multiple repetitions of learned faces also elicited increased central–parietal positivity between 400 and 600 msec and caused a bilateral increase of inferior–temporal negativity (>300 msec) compared with novel faces. Semantic information at learning enhanced recognition rates. Faces that had been learned with semantic information elicited somewhat less negative amplitudes between 700 and 900 msec over left inferior–temporal sites. Overall, the findings demonstrate a role of the temporal N250 ERP in the acquisition of new face representations across different images. They also suggest that, compared with visual presentation alone, additional semantic information at learning facilitates postperceptual processing in recognition but does not facilitate perceptual analysis of learned faces.

scholarly journals Processing Objects at Different Levels of Specificity

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. K. Tyler ◽  
E. A. Stamatakis ◽  
P. Bright ◽  
K. Acres ◽  
S. Abdallah ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Perirhinal Cortex ◽  
Neural System ◽  
Object Identification ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Object Processing ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Cortical Regions ◽  
Simple Features ◽  
Basic Level

How objects are represented and processed in the brain is a central topic in cognitive neuroscience. Previous studies have shown that knowledge of objects is represented in a featurebased distributed neural system primarily involving occipital and temporal cortical regions. Research with nonhuman primates suggest that these features are structured in a hierarchical system with posterior neurons in the inferior temporal cortex representing simple features and anterior neurons in the perirhinal cortex representing complex conjunctions of features (Bussey & Saksida, 2002; Murray & Bussey, 1999). On this account, the perirhinal cortex plays a crucial role in object identification by integrating information from different sensory systems into more complex polymodal feature conjunctions. We tested the implications of these claims for human object processing in an event-related fMRI study in which we presented colored pictures of common objects for 19 subjects to name at two levels of specificity-basic and domain. We reasoned that domain-level naming requires access to a coarsergrained representation of objects, thus involving only posterior regions of the inferior temporal cortex. In contrast, basic-level naming requires finer-grained discrimination to differentiate between similar objects, and thus should involve anterior temporal regions, including the perirhinal cortex. We found that object processing always activated the fusiform gyrus bilaterally, irrespective of the task, whereas the perirhinal cortex was only activated when the task required finer-grained discriminations. These results suggest that the same kind of hierarchical structure, which has been proposed for object processing in the monkey temporal cortex, functions in the human.

scholarly journals The Temporal Dynamics of Object Processing in Visual Cortex during the Transition from Distributed to Focused Spatial Attention

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (12) ◽  
pp. 4094-4105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chien-Te Wu ◽  
Melissa E. Libertus ◽  
Karen L. Meyerhoff ◽  
Marty G. Woldorff
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Object Representation ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Object Processing ◽  
Electrical Brain Activity

Several major cognitive neuroscience models have posited that focal spatial attention is required to integrate different features of an object to form a coherent perception of it within a complex visual scene. Although many behavioral studies have supported this view, some have suggested that complex perceptual discrimination can be performed even with substantially reduced focal spatial attention, calling into question the complexity of object representation that can be achieved without focused spatial attention. In the present study, we took a cognitive neuroscience approach to this problem by recording cognition-related brain activity both to help resolve the questions about the role of focal spatial attention in object categorization processes and to investigate the underlying neural mechanisms, focusing particularly on the temporal cascade of these attentional and perceptual processes in visual cortex. More specifically, we recorded electrical brain activity in humans engaged in a specially designed cued visual search paradigm to probe the object-related visual processing before and during the transition from distributed to focal spatial attention. The onset times of the color popout cueing information, indicating where within an object array the subject was to shift attention, was parametrically varied relative to the presentation of the array (i.e., either occurring simultaneously or being delayed by 50 or 100 msec). The electrophysiological results demonstrate that some levels of object-specific representation can be formed in parallel for multiple items across the visual field under spatially distributed attention, before focal spatial attention is allocated to any of them. The object discrimination process appears to be subsequently amplified as soon as focal spatial attention is directed to a specific location and object. This set of novel neurophysiological findings thus provides important new insights on fundamental issues that have been long-debated in cognitive neuroscience concerning both object-related processing and the role of attention.

Role of inferior temporal cortex in interhemispheric transfer

1979 ◽  
Vol 167 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne Seacord ◽  
Charles G. Gross ◽  
Mortimer Mishkin
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Interhemispheric Transfer ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex

Presumed Inhibitory Neurons in the Macaque Inferior Temporal Cortex: Visual Response Properties and Functional Interactions With Adjacent Neurons

2004 ◽  
Vol 91 (6) ◽  
pp. 2782-2796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Tamura ◽  
Hidekazu Kaneko ◽  
Keisuke Kawasaki ◽  
Ichiro Fujita
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Inhibitory Neurons ◽  
Visual Features ◽  
Similar Degree ◽  
Visual Response ◽  
Response Properties ◽  
Cross Correlation Analysis ◽  
Area Te

Neurons in area TE of the monkey inferior temporal cortex respond selectively to images of particular objects or their characteristic visual features. The mechanism of generation of the stimulus selectivity, however, is largely unknown. This study addresses the role of inhibitory TE neurons in this process by examining their visual response properties and interactions with adjacent target neurons. We applied cross-correlation analysis to spike trains simultaneously recorded from pairs of adjacent neurons in anesthetized macaques. Neurons whose activity preceded a decrease in activity from their partner were presumed to be inhibitory neurons. Excitatory neurons were also identified as the source neuron of excitatory linkage as evidenced by a sharp peak displaced from the 0-ms bin in cross-correlograms. Most inhibitory neurons responded to a variety of visual stimuli in our stimulus set, which consisted of several dozen geometrical figures and photographs of objects, with a clear stimulus preference. On average, 10% of the stimuli increased firing rates of the inhibitory neurons. Both excitatory and inhibitory neurons exhibited a similar degree of stimulus selectivity. Although inhibitory neurons occasionally shared the most preferred stimuli with their target neurons, overall stimulus preferences were less similar between adjacent neurons with inhibitory linkages than adjacent neurons with common inputs and/or excitatory linkages. These results suggest that inhibitory neurons in area TE are activated selectively and exert stimulus-specific inhibition on adjacent neurons, contributing to shaping of stimulus selectivity of TE neurons.

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