Temporal Cortex Activation in Humans Viewing Eye and Mouth Movements

Abstract

We sought to determine whether regions of extrastriate visual cortex could be activated in subjects viewing eye and mouth movements that occurred within a stationary face. Eleven subjects participated in three to five functional magnetic resonance imaging sessions in which they viewed moving eyes, moving mouths, or movements of check patterns that occurred in the same spatial location as the eyes or mouth. In each task, the stimuli were superimposed on a radial background pattern that continually moved inward to control for the effect of movement per se. Activation evoked by the radial background was assessed in a separate control task. Moving eyes and mouths activated a bilateral region centered in the posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS). The moving check patterns did not appreciably activate the STS or surrounding regions. The activation by moving eyes and mouths was distinct from that elicited by the moving radial background, which primarily activated the posterior-temporal-occipital fossa and the lateral occipital sulcus-a region corresponding to area MT/V5. Area MT/V5 was also strongly activated by moving eyes and to a lesser extent by other moving stimuli. These results suggest that a superior temporal region centered in the STS is preferentially involved in the perception of gaze direction and mouth movements. This region of the STS may be functionally related to nearby superior temporal regions thought to be involved in lip-reading and in the perception of hand and body movement.

Autism and the development of face processing

“…Regions in the posterior STS have been shown to respond to moving and stationary eyes and mouth, but not to moving checkerboards or contracting circles [1]. The STS is more activated when subjects selectively attend to eye gaze than to face identity [1,2,9].…”

“…Regions in the posterior STS have been shown to respond to moving and stationary eyes and mouth, but not to moving checkerboards or contracting circles [1]. The STS is more activated when subjects selectively attend to eye gaze than to face identity [1,2,9]. Regions in the STS also respond to a range of visual signals salient for social interaction, such as mutual gaze, emotional expression, speech, intentional limb movements, and biological motion in general [1,2,9,[36][37][38][39].…”

“…The STS is more activated when subjects selectively attend to eye gaze than to face identity [1,2,9]. Regions in the STS also respond to a range of visual signals salient for social interaction, such as mutual gaze, emotional expression, speech, intentional limb movements, and biological motion in general [1,2,9,[36][37][38][39]. Grossman et al (2005) suggested that normal STS functioning is required for perception of biological motion, as repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) disrupted cortical activity in the posterior STS and reduced perceptual sensitivity to point-light animations in healthy adults [36].…”

“…This complex task of face processing in normal adults involves a distributed neural system in which specific loci are implicated in processing-specific facial information. For example, a region along the superior temporal sulcus (STS) is involved in detecting facial movements associated with eye gaze, speech, and emotional expression and intention [1][2][3]. The amygdala responds to faces, especially fearful faces [4][5][6].…”

Processing social aspects of human gaze: A combined fMRI-DTI study

“…Abundant evidence suggests that the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) is critical for gaze processing, including neurophysiological data in non-human primates (Campbell et al, 1990;Hasselmo et al, 1989;Perrett et al, 1992Perrett et al, , 1985, lesion studies (Akiyama et al, 2006;Campbell et al, 1990), and neuroimaging experiments (Conty et al, 2007;Hoffman and Haxby, 2000;Pelphrey et al, 2005Pelphrey et al, , 2003bPuce et al, 1998). The right pSTS has been shown to contain overlapping representations for perception of biological movement, moral judgment and theory of mind (Bahnemann et al, 2010) and appears to be particularly sensitive to goals and intentions conveyed by gaze in social (Bristow et al, 2007;Pelphrey et al, 2004b) and nonsocial (Mosconi et al, 2005;Pelphrey et al, 2004aPelphrey et al, , 2003b paradigms.…”