Is the extrastriate body area part of the dorsal visuomotor stream?Show others and affiliations
2018 (English)In: Brain Structure and Function, ISSN 1863-2653, E-ISSN 1863-2661, Vol. 223, no 1, p. 31-46Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The extrastriate body area (EBA) processes visual information about body parts, and it is considered one among a series of category-specific perceptual modules distributed across the occipito-temporal cortex. However, recent evidence raises the possibility that EBA might also provide an interface between perception and action, linking the ventral and dorsal streams of visual information processing. Here, we assess anatomical evidence supporting this possibility. We localise EBA in individual subjects using a perceptual task and compare the characteristics of its functional and structural connectivity to those of two perceptual areas, the lateral occipital complex (LOC) and the fusiform body area (FBA), separately for each hemisphere. We apply complementary analyses of resting-state fMRI and diffusion-weighted MRI data in a group of healthy right-handed human subjects (N = 31). Functional and structural connectivity profiles indicate that EBA interacts more strongly with dorsal-stream regions compared to other portions of the occipito-temporal cortex involved in processing body parts (FBA) and object identification (LOC). These findings provide anatomical ground for a revision of the functional role of EBA. Building on a number of recent observations, we suggest that EBA contributes to planning goal-directed actions, possibly by specifying a desired postural configuration to parieto-frontal areas involved in computing movement parameters.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018. Vol. 223, no 1, p. 31-46
Keywords [en]
category-selective visual areas, ventral and dorsal visual pathways, goal-directed action, connectivity profile, resting-state fMRI, diffusion MRI
National Category
Psychology
Research subject
Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-151735DOI: 10.1007/s00429-017-1469-0ISI: 000422845500005OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-151735DiVA, id: diva2:1175381
Note
This research was supported by VICI Grant 453-08-002 from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), awarded to IT. The work of RBM is supported by NWO (452-13-015) and the BBSRC UK (BB/N019814/1). FPdL is supported by Grants from NWO (452-13-016), the James S McDonnell Foundation (Understanding Human Cognition, 220020373) and the European Union Horizon 2020 Program (ERC Starting Grant 678286, “Contextvision”). The work of LV is supported by the Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship within the European Union’s 7th Framework Program FP7/2007-2013; MC-IEF-623513 and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) (Prijs Akademiehoogleraar 2012 to Peter Hagoort, supporting LV).
2018-01-172018-01-172022-03-23Bibliographically approved