Dissecting the neural circuits for face perception in macaque inferotemporal cort

剖析猕猴颞下皮质面部感知的神经回路

• 批准号: 7699561
• 负责人: Doris Ying Tsao
• 金额: $ 58万
• 依托单位: CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-08-01 至 2014-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7699561
• 关键词: Address; Age; Anterior; Anxiety Disorders; Attention; Autistic Disorder; Basic Science; Behavior; Behavioral; Brain; Brain region; Caricatures; Cells; Complex; Dimensions; Discrimination; Disease; Electrophysiology (science); Engineering; Face; Face Processing; Facial Expression; Form Perception; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Gender; Goals; Human; Image; Individual; Interneurons; Light; Macaca; Measures; Mediating; Monkeys; Output; Population; Positioning Attribute; Preparation; Primates; Process; Property; Prosopagnosia; Rabies virus; Role; Stimulus; Synapses; System; Task Performances; Temporal Lobe; Testing; Tracer; Travel; Viral; Visual; abstracting; face perception; gaze; human PTCH2 protein; inferotemporal cortex; insight; microstimulation; neural circuit; neuromechanism; public health relevance; research study; response; social; social cognition; visual stimulus

Description (provided by applicant): The goal of this proposal is to understand the neural circuits of the macaque brain mediating face perception. Faces are among the most meaningful visual forms processed by the primate brain, conveying information about identity, expression, gender, age, and direction of attention. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) reveals a specialization for face processing in the macaque temporal lobe: six discrete regions of cortex respond much more strongly to images of faces than to images of other objects. The degree of specialization of these regions for faces is breathtaking: when targeted for single-unit recording, all four regions tested extensively so far turned out to consist almost entirely of face-selective cells. These regions, termed "face patches", are located at similar positions in the two hemispheres and across individuals. Experiments combining fMRI with microstimulation demonstrate that the face patches are strongly and specifically interconnected, yet electrophysiological experiments show that different patches are functionally distinct. The face patch system offers a unique opportunity to dissect the neural mechanisms underlying form perception, because the system is specialized to process one class of complex forms, and because its computational components are spatially segregated. We believe the central experimental challenge to understanding the face patch system is to understand the functional specialization of each patch and how this specialization comes about. To address this challenge, we plan to interrogate the system from four directions: 1) Representations: What are the selectivity and invariance properties of cells in each face patch?, 2) Behavioral Role: What is the effect of inactivating specific face patches on various face-related behaviors?, 3) Connectivity: What is the wiring diagram of the face patches?, and 4) Transformations: What are the key functional differences between input and output cells within each face patch? Addressing these questions will elucidate the principles of information flow within the face patch system and shed light on the general organizing principles of inferotemporal cortex. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: A sizable fraction of humans suffer from "prosopagnosia", a selective inability to recognize faces; our basic research on the face system in macaques aims to gain new insights concerning the brain circuits that are altered in prosopagnosics. Faces are by far the most socially significant class of visual stimuli that we perceive, and our results may shed new light on disorders of social cognition such as autism and social anxiety disorder.

描述（由申请人提供）：该提案的目标是了解猕猴大脑介导面部感知的神经回路。面部是灵长类大脑处理的最有意义的视觉形式之一，传达有关身份、表情、性别、年龄和注意力方向的信息。功能磁共振成像（fMRI）揭示了猕猴颞叶面部处理的特殊性：皮层的六个离散区域对面部图像的反应比对其他物体图像的反应强烈得多。这些面部区域的专业化程度令人惊叹：当以单个单元记录为目标时，迄今为止经过广泛测试的所有四个区域几乎完全由面部选择性细胞组成。这些区域被称为“面部斑块”，位于两个半球和个体之间的相似位置。将功能磁共振成像与微刺激相结合的实验表明，面部斑块是紧密且特定地相互关联的，但电生理学实验表明，不同的斑块在功能上是不同的。面部补丁系统提供了一个独特的机会来剖析形式感知背后的神经机制，因为该系统专门用于处理一类复杂的形式，并且因为其计算组件在空间上是隔离的。我们认为，理解面部补丁系统的核心实验挑战是了解每个补丁的功能专业化以及这种专业化是如何产生的。为了应对这一挑战，我们计划从四个方向询问系统：1）表示：每个面部斑块中细胞的选择性和不变性特性是什么？2）行为角色：使特定面部斑块失活对各种不同的细胞有何影响？与面部相关的行为？，3）连接性：面部补丁的接线图是什么？，4）转换：每个面部补丁内的输入和输出单元之间的关键功能差异是什么？解决这些问题将阐明面部补丁系统内的信息流原理，并阐明颞下皮层的一般组织原理。公共卫生相关性：相当一部分人患有“面容失认症”，即选择性地无法识别面孔；我们对猕猴面部系统的基础研究旨在获得有关面盲症患者大脑回路改变的新见解。面部是迄今为止我们感知到的最具社会意义的视觉刺激，我们的研究结果可能为自闭症和社交焦虑症等社会认知障碍提供新的线索。