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Articles, Behavioral/Cognitive

Neural Decoding Reveals Impaired Face Configural Processing in the Right Fusiform Face Area of Individuals with Developmental Prosopagnosia

Jiedong Zhang (张杰栋), Jia Liu (刘嘉) and Yaoda Xu (许瑶达)
Journal of Neuroscience 28 January 2015, 35 (4) 1539-1548; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2646-14.2015
Jiedong Zhang (张杰栋)
1Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, and
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Jia Liu (刘嘉)
2State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, 100875 Beijing, China
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Yaoda Xu (许瑶达)
1Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, and
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Abstract

Most of human daily social interactions rely on the ability to successfully recognize faces. Yet ∼2% of the human population suffers from face blindness without any acquired brain damage [this is also known as developmental prosopagnosia (DP) or congenital prosopagnosia]). Despite the presence of severe behavioral face recognition deficits, surprisingly, a majority of DP individuals exhibit normal face selectivity in the right fusiform face area (FFA), a key brain region involved in face configural processing. This finding, together with evidence showing impairments downstream from the right FFA in DP individuals, has led some to argue that perhaps the right FFA is largely intact in DP individuals. Using fMRI multivoxel pattern analysis, here we report the discovery of a neural impairment in the right FFA of DP individuals that may play a critical role in mediating their face-processing deficits. In seven individuals with DP, we discovered that, despite the right FFA's preference for faces and it showing decoding for the different face parts, it exhibited impaired face configural decoding and did not contain distinct neural response patterns for the intact and the scrambled face configurations. This abnormality was not present throughout the ventral visual cortex, as normal neural decoding was found in an adjacent object-processing region. To our knowledge, this is the first direct neural evidence showing impaired face configural processing in the right FFA in individuals with DP. The discovery of this neural impairment provides a new clue to our understanding of the neural basis of DP.

  • face configural processing
  • face perception
  • neural decoding
  • right FFA
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The Journal of Neuroscience: 35 (4)
Journal of Neuroscience
Vol. 35, Issue 4
28 Jan 2015
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Neural Decoding Reveals Impaired Face Configural Processing in the Right Fusiform Face Area of Individuals with Developmental Prosopagnosia
Jiedong Zhang (张杰栋), Jia Liu (刘嘉), Yaoda Xu (许瑶达)
Journal of Neuroscience 28 January 2015, 35 (4) 1539-1548; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2646-14.2015

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Neural Decoding Reveals Impaired Face Configural Processing in the Right Fusiform Face Area of Individuals with Developmental Prosopagnosia
Jiedong Zhang (张杰栋), Jia Liu (刘嘉), Yaoda Xu (许瑶达)
Journal of Neuroscience 28 January 2015, 35 (4) 1539-1548; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2646-14.2015
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Keywords

  • face configural processing
  • face perception
  • neural decoding
  • right FFA

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