Highly read on jneurosci.org in October

Electrical stimulation of two specific brain regions distorts the perception of faces.

Facial recognition has been linked to the fusiform gyrus, but establishing a causal link and identifying the specific areas of this region involved have proved challenging. Josef Parvizi and his colleagues at Stanford University in California used three modes of brain-activity measurement to pinpoint a specific neural circuit involved in the visual perception of real faces. The authors stimulated electrodes implanted into the mid and posterior fusiform areas of a 45-year-old man. He reported that the faces he saw in the room appeared so distorted that they almost looked like different people. He was still able to name famous faces and recognize other objects. Stimulating electrodes implanted into nearby brain areas had no effect.

Electrophysiology and functional magnetic resonance imaging data confirmed that these two fusiform areas were active when the volunteer was viewing faces.

J. Neurosci. 32, 14915–14920 (2012)