Cultural specialization of visual cortex

Effects of visual deprivation on synaptic plasticity of visual cortex

  TBS (Theta Burst Stimulation) and PBs (Primed Bursts) are among effective tetanic stimulations for induction of LTP in hippocampus. Recent studies have indicated that TBS is effective in LTP induction in layer III synapses of neocortex, only if applied to layer IV. However, the possibility of neocortical LTP induction using PBs, has not yet been investigated. Sensory deprivation greatly influ...

Title: Functional Specialization in Rat Occipital and Temporal Visual Cortex Running Title: Functional Specialization in Rat Visual Cortex

A direct demonstration of functional specialization in human visual cortex.

We have used positron emission tomography (PET), which measures regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), to demonstrate directly the specialization of function in the normal human visual cortex. A novel technique, statistical parametric mapping, was used to detect foci of significant change in cerebral blood flow within the prestriate cortex, in order to localize those parts involved in the percept...

Functional specialization and dynamic resource allocation in visual cortex.

We studied the spatiotemporal characteristics of cortical activity in early visual areas and the fusiform gyri (FG) by means of magnetoencephalography (MEG). Subjects performed a visual classification task, in which letters and visually similar pseudoletters were presented in different surrounds and under different task demands. The stimuli appeared in a cued half of the visual field (VF). We o...

Aging reduces neural specialization in ventral visual cortex.

The present study investigated whether neural structures become less functionally differentiated and specialized with age. We studied ventral visual cortex, an area of the brain that responds selectively to visual categories (faces, places, and words) in young adults, and that shows little atrophy with age. Functional MRI was used to estimate neural activity in this cortical area, while young a...