title: Effective Connectivity from Early Visual Cortex to Posterior Occipitotemporal Face Areas Supports Face Selectivity and Predicts Developmental Prosopagnosia.
abstract: Face processing is mediated by interactions between functional areas in the occipital and temporal lobe, and the fusiform face area (FFA) and anterior temporal lobe play key roles in the recognition of facial identity. Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP), a lifelong face recognition impairment, have been shown to have structural and functional neuronal alterations in these areas. The present study investigated how face selectivity is generated in participants with normal face processing, and how functional abnormalities associated with DP, arise as a function of network connectivity. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and dynamic causal modeling, we examined effective connectivity in normal participants by assessing network models that include early visual cortex (EVC) and face-selective areas and then investigated the integrity of this connectivity in participants with DP. Results showed that a feedforward architecture from EVC to the occipital face area, EVC to FFA, and EVC to posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) best explained how face selectivity arises in both controls and participants with DP. In this architecture, the DP group showed reduced connection strengths on feedforward connections carrying face information from EVC to FFA and EVC to pSTS. These altered network dynamics in DP contribute to the diminished face selectivity in the posterior occipitotemporal areas affected in DP. These findings suggest a novel view on the relevance of feedforward projection from EVC to posterior occipitotemporal face areas in generating cortical face selectivity and differences in face recognition ability.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Areas of the human brain showing enhanced activation to faces compared to other objects or places have been extensively studied. However, the factors leading to this face selectively have remained mostly unknown. We show that effective connectivity from early visual cortex to posterior occipitotemporal face areas gives rise to face selectivity. Furthermore, people with developmental prosopagnosia, a lifelong face recognition impairment, have reduced face selectivity in the posterior occipitotemporal face areas and left anterior temporal lobe. We show that this reduced face selectivity can be predicted by effective connectivity from early visual cortex to posterior occipitotemporal face areas. This study presents the first network-based account of how face selectivity arises in the human brain.
authors.affiliation: Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Medical Research Council, Cambridge CB2 7EF, United Kingdom, Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QX, United Kingdom, michael.lohse@sjc.ox.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8864-0704
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lohse
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology, Department of Life Sciences, Brunel University London, Middlesex UB8 3PH, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Garrido
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom, and.
authors.forename: Jon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Driver
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Raymond J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Dolan
authors.affiliation: Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755.
authors.forename: Bradley C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Duchaine
authors.affiliation: Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Medical Research Council, Cambridge CB2 7EF, United Kingdom, Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Furl
mesh_terms: D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D016014:Linear Models; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D020238:Prosopagnosia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000473:pathology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000473:pathology*
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: DCM; developmental prosopagnosia; effective connectivity; fMRI; face perception; network