Retinotopic Organization of Human Ventral Visual Cortex
Open Access
- 26 August 2009
- journal article
- Published by Society for Neuroscience in Journal of Neuroscience
- Vol. 29 (34), 10638-10652
- https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.2807-09.2009
Abstract
Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have shown that human ventral visual cortex anterior to human visual area V4 contains two visual field maps, VO-1 and VO-2, that together form the ventral occipital (VO) cluster (Brewer et al., 2005). This cluster is characterized by common functional response properties and responds preferentially to color and object stimuli. Here, we confirm the topographic and functional characteristics of the VO cluster and describe two new visual field maps that are located anterior to VO-2 extending across the collateral sulcus into the posterior parahippocampal cortex (PHC). We refer to these visual field maps as parahippocampal areas PHC-1 and PHC-2. Each PHC map contains a topographic representation of contralateral visual space. The polar angle representation in PHC-1 extends from regions near the lower vertical meridian (that is the shared border with VO-2) to those close to the upper vertical meridian (that is the shared border with PHC-2). The polar angle representation in PHC-2 is a mirror reversal of the PHC-1 representation. PHC-1 and PHC-2 share a foveal representation and show a strong bias toward representations of peripheral eccentricities. Both the foveal and peripheral representations of PHC-1 and PHC-2 respond more strongly to scenes than to objects or faces, with greater scene preference in PHC-2 than PHC-1. Importantly, both areas heavily overlap with the functionally defined parahippocampal place area. Our results suggest that ventral visual cortex can be subdivided on the basis of topographic criteria into a greater number of discrete maps than previously thought.This publication has 59 references indexed in Scilit:
- Parahippocampal and retrosplenial contributions to human spatial navigationTrends in Cognitive Sciences, 2008
- Representation of Eye Movements and Stimulus Motion in Topographically Organized Areas of Human Posterior Parietal CortexJournal of Neuroscience, 2008
- The distribution of category and location information across object-selective regions in human visual cortexProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2008
- Two Retinotopic Visual Areas in Human Lateral Occipital CortexJournal of Neuroscience, 2006
- Domain Specificity in Visual CortexCerebral Cortex, 2005
- Functional measurements of human ventral occipital cortex: retinotopy and colourPhilosophical Transactions B, 2002
- A Cortical Area Selective for Visual Processing of the Human BodyScience, 2001
- Representation of Perceived Object Shape by the Human Lateral Occipital ComplexScience, 2001
- Cortical Surface-Based Analysis: I. Segmentation and Surface ReconstructionNeuroImage, 1999
- AFNI: Software for Analysis and Visualization of Functional Magnetic Resonance NeuroimagesComputers and Biomedical Research, 1996