Dissociation of Object and Spatial Visual Processing Pathways in Human Extrastriate Cortex

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 88; no. 5; pp. 1621 - 1625
• Main Authors: Haxby, James V., Grady, Cheryl L., Horwitz, Barry, Ungerleider, Leslie G., Mishkin, Mortimer, Carson, Richard E., Herscovitch, Peter, Schapiro, Mark B., Rapoport, Stanley I.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 01.03.1991; National Acad Sciences
• Subjects: 550601 - Medicine- Unsealed Radionuclides in Diagnostics; Adult; ANIMALS; BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES; BETA-PLUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES; Biological and medical sciences; BIOLOGICAL PATHWAYS; BLOOD FLOW; BODY; BRAIN; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - physiology; CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM; CEREBRAL CORTEX; Cerebrovascular Circulation; CEREBRUM; COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS; COMPUTERIZED TOMOGRAPHY; DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES; Discrimination (Psychology); EMISSION COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY; EVEN-ODD NUCLEI; Eye and associated structures. Visual pathways and centers. Vision; Eyes; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Image contrast; ISOTOPES; Lesions; LIGHT NUCLEI; Macaca; Male; MAMMALS; MAN; MINUTES LIVING RADIOISOTOPES; MONKEYS; NERVOUS SYSTEM; NUCLEI; Object recognition; Occipital Lobe - diagnostic imaging; Occipital Lobe - physiology; ORGANS; OXYGEN 15; OXYGEN ISOTOPES; Oxygen Radioisotopes; Pixels; POSITRON COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY; Positron emission tomography; PRIMATES; RADIOISOTOPES; RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE; Space Perception; TOMOGRAPHY; Tomography, Emission-Computed; VERTEBRATES; Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs; Visual cortex; Visual Cortex - physiology; Visual Pathways - physiology; Visual Perception; Visual processing; Human; Regional blood flow; Brain; Cerebral cortex; Visual cortex; Vision; Central nervous system; Space perception; Anatomy; Positron emission tomography; Visual task
• ISSN: 0027-8424; 1091-6490
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.88.5.1621

The existence and neuroanatomical locations of separate extrastriate visual pathways for object recognition and spatial localization were investigated in healthy young men. Regional cerebral blood flow was measured by positron emission tomography and bolus injections of H2 15O, while subjects performed face matching, dot-location matching, or sensorimotor control tasks. Both visual matching tasks activated lateral occipital cortex. Face discrimination alone activated a region of occipitotemporal cortex that was anterior and inferior to the occipital area activated by both tasks. The spatial location task alone activated a region of lateral superior parietal cortex. Perisylvian and anterior temporal cortices were not activated by either task. These results demonstrated the existence of three functionally dissociable regions of human visual extrastriate cortex. The ventral and dorsal locations of the regions specialized for object recognition and spatial localization, respectively, suggest some homology between human and nonhuman primate extrastriate cortex, with displacement in human brain, possibly related to the evolution of phylogenetically newer cortical areas.