title: Cortico-subcortical visual, somatosensory, and motor activations for perceiving dynamic whole-body emotional expressions with and without striate cortex (V1).
abstract: Patients with striate cortex damage and clinical blindness retain the ability to process certain visual properties of stimuli that they are not aware of seeing. Here we investigated the neural correlates of residual visual perception for dynamic whole-body emotional actions. Angry and neutral emotional whole-body actions were presented in the intact and blind visual hemifield of a cortically blind patient with unilateral destruction of striate cortex. Comparisons of angry vs. neutral actions performed separately in the blind and intact visual hemifield showed in both cases increased activation in primary somatosensory, motor, and premotor cortices. Activations selective for intact hemifield presentation of angry compared with neutral actions were located subcortically in the right lateral geniculate nucleus and cortically in the superior temporal sulcus, prefrontal cortex, precuneus, and intraparietal sulcus. Activations specific for blind hemifield presentation of angry compared with neutral actions were found in the bilateral superior colliculus, pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus, amygdala, and right fusiform gyrus. Direct comparison of emotional modulation in the blind vs. intact visual hemifield revealed selective activity in the right superior colliculus and bilateral pulvinar for angry expressions, thereby showing a selective involvement of these subcortical structures in nonconscious visual emotion perception.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory,  Tilburg University, 5000 LE Tilburg,  The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Van den Stock
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tamietto
authors.forename: Bettina
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sorger
authors.forename: Swann
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pichon
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Grézes
authors.forename: Beatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: de Gelder
mesh_terms: D001766:Blindness / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D014795:Visual Pathways