Spatiotemporal Analysis of Category and Target-related Information Processing in the Brain during Object Detection.

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Category and Target-related Information Processing in the Brain during Object Detection.
Behav Brain Res. 2019 Jan 14;:
Authors: Karimi-Rouzbahani H, Vahab E, Ebrahimpour R, Menhaj MB
Abstract
To recognize a target object, the brain implements strategies which involve a combination of externally sensory-driven and internally task-driven mechanisms. While several studies have suggested a role for frontal brain areas in enhancing task-related representations in visual cortices, especially in the lateral-occipital cortex, they have remained silent about the type of information transferred to visual areas. However, the recently developed methods of representational connectivity analysis, allowed us to track the movement of different types of information in the brain. Accordingly, we designed an EEG object detection experiment and inspected the spatiotemporal dynamics of category- and target-related information across the brain. Results showed that the prefrontal area initiated the processing of target-related information. This information was then transferred to posterior brain areas during stimulus presentation probably to facilitate object detection and to direct the decision-making procedure. We also observed that, as compared to category-related information, the target-related information could predict the behavioral performance more accurately, suggesting the dominant representation of internal compared to...

Source: Behavioural Brain Research - January 14, 2019 Category: Neurology Authors: Karimi-Rouzbahani H, Vahab E, Ebrahimpour R, Menhaj MB Tags: Behav Brain Res Source Type: research