Distinct neural response to visual perspective and body size in the extrastriate body area

Abstract

Neuroimaging research has independently implicated the extrastriate body area (EBA) in distinguishing between different visual perspectives and morphologies of bodies within visual processing. However, the combined processing of these physical attributes towards neural EBA response remains unclear, and may be crucial in influencing higher-order, aesthetic evaluation of bodies. Indeed, EBA alterations amongst eating disorder patients have been associated with disturbances in body image, and disruption 8 to EBA activity amongst healthy individuals shown to influence aesthetic evaluations made towards 9 bodies. Therefore, the present study used images of slim and large female bodies viewed from 10 egocentric and allocentric perspectives, to investigate neural EBA response in healthy females (N=30). 11 In addition, participants provided behavioural aesthetic and weight evaluations of all model stimuli. 12 Results revealed an interaction, bilaterally, between visual perspective and body size in EBA activity, 13 with multi-voxel pattern analysis revealing distinct neural patterns between the four conditions. 14 However, EBA activity did not relate to non-clinical eating disorder psychopathology. No direct 15 relationship was found between EBA activity and behavioural evaluations of model stimuli; however, 16 a whole brain analysis revealed that higher-order, prefrontal regions were associated with cognitive 17 evaluations of large bodies. Taken together, our results suggest that the EBA is an integral core region in discriminating between multiple physical attributes of the body, which is likely to provide important information to higher-order brain regions which make aesthetic evaluations towards bodies.

“eLoriCorps Immersive Body Rating Scale”: Exploring the Assessment of Body Image Disturbances from Allocentric and Egocentric Perspectives

“…Another alternative that must be studied further is that what is actually viewed by the participants in the allocentric and egocentric perspectives differs also in terms of body parts, of potential aesthetics qualities, and brain mechanisms, allowing the identification of body parts. Carey et al [ 65 ] studied the role of a cortical region dedicated to the visual processing of bodies and body parts. Their results suggested that the extrastriata body area was activated differentially in the allocentric and egocentric perspectives.…”

Neural correlates of body image processing in binge eating disorder.

“…Contrary to our expectations, participants with BED were not characterized by aberrant activation in the EBA in response to the own body, which suggests that the EBA does not play a specific role in body image disturbances in BED. Notably, previous findings on the role of the FBA and the EBA in body processing in eating disorders (AN and BN) have been quite inconsistent across studies (Carey et al, 2019; Castellini et al, 2013; Miyake et al, 2010; Suda et al, 2013; Uher et al, 2005; Vocks et al, 2010). Relative to these previous studies, the present study differed in several ways: First, we used a localizer task to individually identify the EBA and FBA.…”

Distributed network flows generate localized category selectivity in human visual cortex

“…2A). EBA computations are thought to discriminate between bodily attributes and parts (Carey et al, 2019) and provide postural information to frontoparietal regions (Zimmermann et al, 2018), indicating a pivotal role in action planning. The FBA is thought to process images of whole bodies (Taylor et al, 2007) and pairs of body parts (Bratch et al, 2018).…”

“…Processing of human body images (Fig 4A) is associated with the fusiform body area (FBA) and the extrastriate body area (EBA) [2,3,71], which are located in the lateral occipito-temporal cortex (Tables 1 and 2, Fig 4B). EBA computations are thought to discriminate between bodily attributes and parts [153] and provide postural information to frontoparietal regions [72], indicating a pivotal role in action planning. The FBA is thought to process images of whole bodies [3] and pairs of body parts [154].…”