Spatial organization of face part representations within face-selective areas revealed by high-field fMRI

Abstract

Regions sensitive to specific object categories as well as organized spatial patterns sensitive to different features have been found across the whole ventral temporal cortex (VTC). However, it is unclear that within each object category region, how specific feature representations are organized to support object identification. Would object features, such as object parts, be represented in fine-scale spatial organization within object category-specific regions? Here we used high-field 7T fMRI to examine the spatial organization of neural tuning to different face parts within each face-selective region. Our results show consistent spatial organization across individuals that within right posterior fusiform face area (pFFA) and right occipital face area (OFA), the posterior portion of each region was biased to eyes, while the anterior portion was biased to mouth and chin stimuli. Our results demonstrate that within the occipital and fusiform face processing regions, there exist systematic spatial organizations of neural tuning to different face parts that support further computation combining them.