Functional Connectivity of Co-localized Brain Regions during Biological Motion, Face and Social Perception using Partial Correlation Analysis

• Published in: Journal of vision (Charlottesville, Va.) Vol. 14; no. 10; p. 1011
• Main Authors: Dasgupta, S., Tyler, S., Srinivasan, R., Grossman, E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 22.08.2014
• DOI: 10.1167/14.10.1011
• ISSN: 1534-7362

Perception and recognition of actions and intentions of others requires the successful coordination of brain systems supporting visual recognition, attention and cognitive control. Our current study aims to identify the functional connections within a shared large-scale cortical network, and how that pattern of connectivity supports the analysis of socially relevant information processing. Subjects participated in three localizer tasks from socially relevant representative domains: 1) biological motion recognition: point-light biological motion versus motion-matched scrambled controls, 2) perceived animacy: social vignettes depicting geometric shapes engaged in social or mechanical actions, and 3) face perception: stationary faces versus pixel-scrambled faces. We identified ROIs shared by the three tasks using a conjunction analysis across the localizers. Our multivariate approach reveals the existence of a distributed network of brain regions with a core pattern of connectivity that is shared by biological motion, face perception and perceived animacy. We conclude this pattern of connectivity reflects the successful coordination of large-scale brain systems during social cognition.