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Fusiform face area:

The Fusiform face area (FFA) is a part of the human visual system which might be specialized for facial recognition, although there is some evidence that it also processes categorical information about other objects.

1 Localization
2 Functional role
3 Further reading
4 References

[edit] Localization

The FFA is located in the ventral stream on the ventral surface of the temporal lobe on the fusiform gyrus. It is adjacent to the parahippocampal place area and near the putative extrastriate body area. It is in a slightly different place for each human and displays some lateralization, usually being larger in the right hemisphere.

The FFA was discovered and continues to be investigated in humans using Positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. Usually, a participant views images of faces, objects, places, bodies, scrambled faces, scrambled objects, scrambled places and scrambled bodies. This is called a functional localizer. Comparing the neural response between faces and scrambled faces will reveal areas that are face-responsive, while comparing cortical activation between faces and objects will reveal areas that are face-selective.

[edit] Functional role

The human FFA was first described by Justine Sergent in 1992^[1] and more recently by Nancy Kanwisher in 1997^[2] who proposed that the existence of the FFA is evidence for domain specificity in the visual system. More recently, it has been suggested that the FFA processes more than just faces. Some groups, including Isabel Gauthier and others, maintain that the FFA is an area for recognizing fine distinctions between well-known objects. Gauthier et al tested both car and bird experts, and found some activation in the FFA when car experts were identifying cars and when bird experts were identifying birds.^[3] A recent paper by Kalanit Grill-Spector et al also suggests that processing in the FFA is not exclusive to faces (although an erratum was later published which brought to light some errors).^[4] The debate about the functional role of the FFA is still ongoing.

[edit] Further reading

McKone et al., Trends in Cognitive Science, 2007
Carlson, Neil R., Physiology of Behavior, 9th ed., 2007. ISBN:0-205-46724-5
Bukach, C. M., I. Gauthier, and M. Tarr. 2006. Beyond faces and modularity: The power of an expertise framework. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences 10:159-166.

[edit] References

^ Sergent J, Ohta S, MacDonald B (1992 Feb). "Functional neuroanatomy of face and object processing. A positron emission tomography study". Brain 115 (1): 15–36. PMID 1559150.
^ Kanwisher N, McDermott J, Chun MM (1997 Jun 1). "The fusiform face area: a module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception". J Neurosci. 17 (11): 4302–11. PMID 9151747.
^ Gauthier I, Skudlarski P, Gore JC, Anderson AW (2000 Feb). "Expertise for cars and birds recruits brain areas involved in face recognition". Nat Neurosci. 3 (2): 191–7. doi:10.1038/72140. PMID 10649576.
^ Grill-Spector K, Sayres R, Ress D (2006 Sep). "High-resolution imaging reveals highly selective nonface clusters in the fusiform face area". Nat Neurosci. 9 (9): 1177–85. doi:10.1038/nn1745. PMID 16892057.