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Mechanisms of hemispheric lateralization: Asymmetric interhemispheric recruitment in the face perception network

Frässle, Stefan; Paulus, Frieder Michel; Krach, Sören; Schweinberger, Stefan Robert; Stephan, Klaas E; Jansen, Andreas (2016). Mechanisms of hemispheric lateralization: Asymmetric interhemispheric recruitment in the face perception network. NeuroImage, 124((Pt A)):977-988.

Abstract

Perceiving human faces constitutes a fundamental ability of the human mind, integrating a wealth of information essential for social interactions in everyday life. Neuroimaging studies have unveiled a distributed neural network consisting of multiple brain regions in both hemispheres. Whereas the individual regions in the face perception network and the right-hemispheric dominance for face processing have been subject to intensive research, the functional integration among these regions and hemispheres has received considerably less attention. Using dynamic causal modeling (DCM) for fMRI, we analyzed the effective connectivity between the core regions in the face perception network of healthy humans to unveil the mechanisms underlying both intra- and interhemispheric integration. Our results suggest that the right-hemispheric lateralization of the network is due to an asymmetric face-specific interhemispheric recruitment at an early processing stage - that is, at the level of the occipital face area (OFA) but not the fusiform face area (FFA). As a structural correlate, we found that OFA gray matter volume was correlated with this asymmetric interhemispheric recruitment. Furthermore, exploratory analyses revealed that interhemispheric connection asymmetries were correlated with the strength of pupil constriction in response to faces, a measure with potential sensitivity to holistic (as opposed to feature-based) processing of faces. Overall, our findings thus provide a mechanistic description for lateralized processes in the core face perception network, point to a decisive role of interhemispheric integration at an early stage of face processing among bilateral OFA, and tentatively indicate a relation to individual variability in processing strategies for faces. These findings provide a promising avenue for systematic investigations of the potential role of interhemispheric integration in future studies.

Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:04 Faculty of Medicine > Institute of Biomedical Engineering
Dewey Decimal Classification:170 Ethics
610 Medicine & health
Scopus Subject Areas:Life Sciences > Neurology
Life Sciences > Cognitive Neuroscience
Uncontrolled Keywords:Dynamic causal modeling, Face perception, Fusiform face area, Hemispheric lateralization, Occipital face area, Pupil, Voxel-based morphometry
Language:English
Date:January 2016
Deposited On:29 Apr 2016 15:44
Last Modified:14 Jun 2025 01:37
Publisher:Elsevier
ISSN:1053-8119
OA Status:Closed
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.09.055
Official URL:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811915008770
PubMed ID:26439515

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