title: Altered spontaneous neural activity in the occipital face area reflects behavioral deficits in developmental prosopagnosia.
abstract: Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) exhibit severe difficulties in recognizing faces and to a lesser extent, also exhibit difficulties in recognizing non-face objects. We used fMRI to investigate whether these behavioral deficits could be accounted for by altered spontaneous neural activity. Two aspects of spontaneous neural activity were measured: the intensity of neural activity in a voxel indexed by the fractional amplitude of spontaneous low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF), and the connectivity of a voxel to neighboring voxels indexed by regional homogeneity (ReHo). Compared with normal adults, both the fALFF and ReHo values within the right occipital face area (rOFA) were significantly reduced in DP subjects. Follow-up studies on the normal adults revealed that these two measures indicated further functional division of labor within the rOFA. The fALFF in the rOFA was positively correlated with behavioral performance in recognition of non-face objects, whereas ReHo in the rOFA was positively correlated with processing of faces. When considered together, the altered fALFF and ReHo within the same region (rOFA) may account for the comorbid deficits in both face and object recognition in DPs, whereas the functional division of labor in these two measures helps to explain the relative independency of deficits in face recognition and object recognition in DP.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Yuanfang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: College of Education, Dali University, Dali 671003, China.
authors.forename: Jingguang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Xiqin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Yiying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department, Harvard University, 02138 USA.
authors.forename: Ruosi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA.
authors.forename: Zetian
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. Electronic address: liujia@bnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology*; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D020238:Prosopagnosia / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology; D051192:Receptors, Pattern Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D051192:Receptors, Pattern Recognition; D010100:Oxygen
keywords: Amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation; Developmental prosopagnosia; Occipital face area; Regional homogeneity