The Selectivity and Functional Connectivity of the Anterior Temporal Lobes

Simmons, W. Kyle; Reddish, Mark A.; Bellgowan, Patrick S.F.; Martin, Alex

doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp149

Cited by 225 publications

(203 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…In some task-based fMRI and lesion studies (Damasio et al, 1996;Martin et al, 1996), the LMTG has been shown to be more sensitive to certain semantic categories such as tools, while other studies have observed effects for a wide range of semantic categories (Rudrauf et al, 2008;Simmons et al, 2010), including verbs (Willms et al, 2011), suggesting that the effect reported here is not likely to be driven only by tool items. We nevertheless analyzed tool and animal items separately in our study, and found similar LMTG effects for the two categories [for tools, peak, Ϫ63, Ϫ45, Ϫ3; 3024 mm 3 (112 voxels); r peak ϭ 0.64; r cluster ϭ 0.77; p values Ͻ0.001; for animals, peak, Ϫ60, Ϫ48, Ϫ3; 3186 mm 3 (118 voxels); r peak ϭ 0.63; r cluster ϭ 0.74; p values Ͻ0.001].…”

Section: Lmtg As a Core Semantic Regionmentioning

confidence: 50%

“…We nevertheless analyzed tool and animal items separately in our study, and found similar LMTG effects for the two categories [for tools, peak, Ϫ63, Ϫ45, Ϫ3; 3024 mm 3 (112 voxels); r peak ϭ 0.64; r cluster ϭ 0.77; p values Ͻ0.001; for animals, peak, Ϫ60, Ϫ48, Ϫ3; 3186 mm 3 (118 voxels); r peak ϭ 0.63; r cluster ϭ 0.74; p values Ͻ0.001]. It is possible that the tool-specific effects reported in the literature originated from an LMTG region that was close to but different from ours (Simmons et al, 2010). We did show, however, that number judgment performance did not correlate with the observed object semantic LMTG network, but with parietal regions close to the classical number regions (Footnote a), suggesting that our technique has the potential to distinguish between conceptual domains.…”

Section: Lmtg As a Core Semantic Regionmentioning

confidence: 58%

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Predicting Conceptual Processing Capacity from Spontaneous Neuronal Activity of the Left Middle Temporal Gyrus

Tao

Liang²,

He³

et al. 2012

J. Neurosci.

167

126

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Conceptual processing is a crucial brain function for humans. Past research using neuropsychological and task-based functional brainimaging paradigms indicates that widely distributed brain regions are related to conceptual processing. Here, we explore the potential contribution of intrinsic or spontaneous brain activity to conceptual processing by examining whether resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) signals can account for individual differences in the conceptual processing efficiencies of healthy individuals. We acquired rs-fMRI and behavioral data on object conceptual processing tasks. We found that the regional amplitude of spontaneous low-frequency fluctuations in the blood oxygen level-dependent signal in the left (posterior) middle temporal gyrus (LMTG) was highly correlated with participants' semantic processing efficiency. Furthermore, the strength of the functional connectivity between the LMTG and a series of brain regions-the left inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral anterior temporal lobe, bilateral medial temporal lobe, posterior cingulate gyrus, and ventromedial and dorsomedial prefrontal cortices-also significantly predicted conceptual behavior. The regional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations and functionally relevant connectivity strengths of LMTG together accounted for 74% of individual variance in object conceptual performance. This semantic network, with the LMTG as its core component, largely overlaps with the regions reported in previous conceptual/semantic task-based fMRI studies. We conclude that the intrinsic or spontaneous activity of the human brain reflects the processing efficiency of the semantic system.

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Section: Lmtg As a Core Semantic Regionmentioning

confidence: 50%

Section: Lmtg As a Core Semantic Regionmentioning

confidence: 58%

Predicting Conceptual Processing Capacity from Spontaneous Neuronal Activity of the Left Middle Temporal Gyrus

Tao

Liang²,

He³

et al. 2012

J. Neurosci.

167

126

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Due to its sensitivity to higher-level factors, such as familiarity (22), and its involvement in conceptual processing (38,39), the anterior temporal cortex is thought to encode biographical information (6). Whereas our ability to localize this region validates our mapping methodology, the fact that our stimuli were not explicitly associated with any biographical information suggests that the computations hosted by this area also involve a perceptual component.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

Unraveling the distributed neural code of facial identity through spatiotemporal pattern analysis

Nestor

Plaut²,

Behrmann³

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

281

242

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Face individuation is one of the most impressive achievements of our visual system, and yet uncovering the neural mechanisms subserving this feat appears to elude traditional approaches to functional brain data analysis. The present study investigates the neural code of facial identity perception with the aim of ascertaining its distributed nature and informational basis. To this end, we use a sequence of multivariate pattern analyses applied to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. First, we combine information-based brain mapping and dynamic discrimination analysis to locate spatiotemporal patterns that support face classification at the individual level. This analysis reveals a network of fusiform and anterior temporal areas that carry information about facial identity and provides evidence that the fusiform face area responds with distinct patterns of activation to different face identities. Second, we assess the information structure of the network using recursive feature elimination. We find that diagnostic information is distributed evenly among anterior regions of the mapped network and that a right anterior region of the fusiform gyrus plays a central role within the information network mediating face individuation. These findings serve to map out and characterize a cortical system responsible for individuation. More generally, in the context of functionally defined networks, they provide an account of distributed processing grounded in information-based architectures.T he neural basis of face perception is the focus of extensive research as it provides key insights both into the computational architecture of visual recognition (1, 2) and into the functional organization of the brain (3). A central theme of this research emphasizes the distribution of face processing across a network of spatially segregated areas (4-10). However, there remains considerable disagreement about how information is represented and processed within this network to support tasks such as individuation, expression analysis, or high-level semantic processing.One influential view proposes an architecture that maps different tasks to distinct, unique cortical regions (6) and, as such, draws attention to the specificity of this mapping (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20). As a case in point, face individuation (e.g., differentiating Steve Jobs from Bill Gates across changes in expression) is commonly mapped onto the fusiform face area (FFA) (6, 21). Although recent studies have questioned this role of the FFA (14, 15), overall they agree with this task-based architecture as they single out other areas supporting individuation.However, various distributed accounts have also been considered. One such account ascribes facial identity processing to multiple, independent regions. Along these lines, the FFA's sensitivity to individuation has been variedly extended to areas of the inferior occipital gyrus (5), the superior temporal sulcus (12), and the temporal pole (22). An alternative scenario is that identity is encode...

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“…Next, we asked whether the ATL acts as a neural switchboard, performing in concert with other brain regions to enable the retrieval of different facets of person knowledge in a flexible and context-appropriate manner (study 2). We focus on the ATL because multiple lines of evidence from neuropsychology, electrophysiology, and neuroimaging have documented the critical role of the ATL in person identification (4, 5, 11-16), person-related learning (10,(17)(18)(19)(20)(21), semantic memory (6-8), and abstract social knowledge (1,(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33). Individuals with ATL damage due to resection or stroke have multimodal person recognition deficits (34), lose access to stored knowledge about familiar people (35,36), and have difficulties learning information about new people (4,22,37,38).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic neural architecture for social knowledge retrieval

Wang

Collins

Koski

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Social behavior is often shaped by the rich storehouse of biographical information that we hold for other people. In our daily life, we rapidly and flexibly retrieve a host of biographical details about individuals in our social network, which often guide our decisions as we navigate complex social interactions. Even abstract traits associated with an individual, such as their political affiliation, can cue a rich cascade of person-specific knowledge. Here, we asked whether the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) serves as a hub for a distributed neural circuit that represents person knowledge. Fifty participants across two studies learned biographical information about fictitious people in a 2-d training paradigm. On day 3, they retrieved this biographical information while undergoing an fMRI scan. A series of multivariate and connectivity analyses suggest that the ATL stores abstract person identity representations. Moreover, this region coordinates interactions with a distributed network to support the flexible retrieval of person attributes. Together, our results suggest that the ATL is a central hub for representing and retrieving person knowledge.person knowledge | anterior temporal lobe | person identity node | semantic memory | social neuroscience A s social creatures, it is essential that we develop a rich storehouse of knowledge about other members of our social network, such as who they are, how they look and sound, where they live, and what they do for a living. However, little is known about how and where such "person knowledge" is represented, stored, and retrieved in the brain. This inquiry is challenging because person knowledge is highly multimodal and multifaceted, being linked to both abstract features such as personality and social status as well as more concrete features such as eye color; in addition, familiar individuals are associated with detailed episodic and semantic memories (e.g., memories of shared experiences and biographic information) (1, 2). The neural circuit for person knowledge must therefore have the ability to combine multiple sources of information into an abstract representation accessible from multiplicative cues.An influential theory by Burton and Bruce (3) proposes that person recognition is achieved through a hierarchical process that begins with the activation of modality-specific recognition units that selectively respond to the presence of a known face, name, or voice. This information is then sent to an amodal person identity node (PIN) that integrates information from the modality-specific recognition units into a multimodal representation for that individual. Excitation of the PIN ultimately allows the retrieval of personspecific semantic information independently of stimulus modality (4, 5). A similar design is embedded in the "hub-and-spoke" theory of semantic knowledge, which proposes that different features of a concept (such as its color or taste) are distributed throughout the brain (the "spokes") and that a centralized "hub" integrates these features into a cohe...

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The Selectivity and Functional Connectivity of the Anterior Temporal Lobes

Cited by 225 publications

References 84 publications

Predicting Conceptual Processing Capacity from Spontaneous Neuronal Activity of the Left Middle Temporal Gyrus

Predicting Conceptual Processing Capacity from Spontaneous Neuronal Activity of the Left Middle Temporal Gyrus

Unraveling the distributed neural code of facial identity through spatiotemporal pattern analysis

Dynamic neural architecture for social knowledge retrieval

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