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Single neuron responses underlying face recognition in the human midfusiform face-selective cortex

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posted on 2023-09-25, 11:35 authored by Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, Marta Boscaglia, Jacques Jonas, Hernan G Rey, Xiaoqian Yan, Louis Maillard, Sophie Colnat-Coulbois, Laurent Koessler, Bruno Rossion

Faces are critical for social interactions and their recognition constitutes one of the most important and challenging functions of the human brain. While neurons responding selectively to faces have been recorded for decades in the monkey brain, face-selective neural activations have been reported with neuroimaging primarily in the human midfusiform gyrus. Yet, the cellular mechanisms producing selective responses to faces in this hominoid neuroanatomical structure remain unknown. Here we report single neuron recordings performed in 5 human subjects (1 male, 4 females) implanted with intracerebral microelectrodes in the face-selective midfusiform gyrus, while they viewed pictures of familiar and unknown faces and places. We observed similar responses to faces and places at the single cell level, but a significantly higher number of neurons responding to faces, thus offering a mechanistic account for the face-selective activations observed in this region. Although individual neurons did not respond preferentially to familiar faces, a population level analysis could consistently determine whether or not the faces (but not the places) were familiar, only about 50 ms after the initial recognition of the stimuli as faces. These results provide insights into the neural mechanisms of face processing in the human brain.

Funding

Memory formation in the human medial temporal lobe

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

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ERC Adg HUMANFACE 101055175 and Région Grand est and Rotary-FRC-Espoir en tête

History

Author affiliation

Centre for Systems Neuroscience, University of Leicester

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

Nature Communications

Volume

14

Issue

1

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC

eissn

2041-1723

Copyright date

2023

Available date

2023-09-25

Language

en

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