Project Summary The goal of the proposed research is to probe object-recognition circuitry in inferotemporal cortex by specific manipulations of early visual experience. In adult humans and monkeys discrete regions of the temporal lobe are specialized for processing particular object categories, such as faces, text, bodies, or places. These domains underlie complex object recognition. Visual experience of these categories is both necessary and sufficient to produce domains, and the goal is to explore how specific abnormal early visual experience changes neuronal selectivity.

Project Narrative In humans and in monkeys neurological findings, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and electrophysiology have all converged to show that the object recognition part of the visual pathway is divided up into domains specialized for processing specific object categories, such as faces, text, places, and body parts; these domains underlie complex social behavior, and astonishing skills like fluent reading. The project goal is to probe the circuitry underlying the remarkable selectivity of neurons in these domains by introducing specific manipulations of early visual experience. Early life experiences clearly can have long lasting consequences, and treating these consequences requires an understanding of how some kinds of experience, or the deprivation thereof, can permanently change how the brain processes visual information.