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2006年11月17日

Neural machinery for detecting and measuring faces in fMRI-identified macaque face patches

日 時 2006年11月17日(金) 14:00 より 15:00 まで
講演者 Doris Tsao 先生
講演者所属 Head of Young Research Group, Institute for Brain Research, University of Bremen
お問い合わせ先 小松英彦(感覚認知情報研究部門 内線7861)
要旨

What are the neural circuits underlying face perception in primates? Using fMRI in alert monkeys, we identified three face-selective regions in the temporal lobe. In my talk, I will describe single-unit recordings targeted to two of these fMRI identified face patches. Single-unit recordings targeted to the middle face patch revealed that almost all visually responsive neurons in this region are strongly face selective. Experiments with a sequence of cartoon faces rapidly changing along 19 feature dimensions revealed that most cells in the middle face patch are tuned to small subsets of facial feature dimensions; tuning to different parameters was independent and usually ramp-shaped, suggesting face coding by dimensions rather than exemplars. Recordings from a second, more anterior face-selective region showed that almost all cells in this region are also face selective. However, functionally, this new anterior area differs in several ways from the middle face patch: 1) cells are much more strongly view selective 2) view selectivity is highly mirror symmetric, 3) a subset of cells show separable coding of identity and view direction, and 4) LFPs, biphasic in shape in response to all objects, are several tens of milliseconds faster for faces than other objects.