RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Food for thought: selectivity for food in human ventral visual cortex
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2022.05.22.492983
DO 10.1101/2022.05.22.492983
A1 Nidhi Jain
A1 Aria Wang
A1 Margaret M. Henderson
A1 Ruogu Lin
A1 Jacob S. Prince
A1 Michael J. Tarr
A1 Leila Wehbe
YR 2022
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/05/24/2022.05.22.492983.abstract
AB Ventral visual cortex contains regions of selectivity for domains of ecological importance. Food is an ecologically and evolutionarily important category, whose high degree of visual variability may make the identification of selectivity more challenging. We investigated neural responsiveness to food using natural images combined with large-scale human neuroimaging. Leveraging the improved sensitivity of modern designs and statistical analysis methods, we identified two food-selective regions in the ventral visual cortex. Our results were robust across 8 subjects, multiple independent sets of images and multiple analysis methods. Additionally, these results were not due to stimulus properties or saliency. The identification of food-selective regions stands alongside prior findings of functional selectivity and provides an important addition to our understanding of the organization of knowledge within the human visual system.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.