Ayse Pinar Saygin

Voxel-based lesion–symptom mapping

For more than a century, lesion–symptom mapping studies have yielded valuable insights into the relationships between brain and behavior, but newer imaging techniques have surpassed lesion analysis in examining functional networks. Here we used a new method—voxel-based lesion–symptom mapping (VLSM)—to analyze the relationship between tissue damage and behavior on a voxel-by-voxel basis, as in functional neuroimaging. We applied VLSM to measures of speech fluency and language comprehension in 101 left-hemisphere-damaged aphasic patients: the VLSM maps for these measures confirm the anticipated contrast between anterior and posterior areas, and they also indicate that interacting regions facilitate fluency and auditory comprehension, in agreement with findings from modern brain imaging.

Smoothing and cluster thresholding for cortical surface-based group analysis of fMRI data

Cortical surface-based analysis of fMRI data has proven to be a useful method with several advantages over 3-dimensional volumetric analyses. Many of the statistical methods used in 3D analyses can be adapted for use with surface-based analyses. Operating within the framework of the FreeSurfer software package, we have implemented a surface-based version of the cluster size exclusion method used for multiple comparisons correction. Furthermore, we have a developed a new method for generating regions of interest on the cortical surface using a sliding threshold of cluster exclusion followed by cluster growth. Cluster size limits for multiple probability thresholds were estimated using random field theory and validated with Monte Carlo simulation. A prerequisite of RFT or cluster size simulation is an estimate of the smoothness of the data. In order to estimate the intrinsic smoothness of group analysis statistics, independent of true activations, we conducted a group analysis of simulated noise data sets. Because smoothing on a cortical surface mesh is typically implemented using an iterative method, rather than directly applying a Gaussian blurring kernel, it is also necessary to determine the width of the equivalent Gaussian blurring kernel as a function of smoothing steps. Iterative smoothing has previously been modeled as continuous heat diffusion, providing a theoretical basis for predicting the equivalent kernel width, but the predictions of the model were not empirically tested. We generated an empirical heat diffusion kernel width function by performing surface-based smoothing simulations and found a large disparity between the expected and actual kernel widths.

The thing that should not be: predictive coding and the uncanny valley in perceiving human and humanoid robot actions.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) repetition suppression, we explored the selectivity of the human action perception system (APS), which consists of temporal, parietal and frontal areas, for the appearance and/or motion of the perceived agent. Participants watched body movements of a human (biological appearance and movement), a robot (mechanical appearance and movement) or an android (biological appearance, mechanical movement). With the exception of extrastriate body area, which showed more suppression for human like appearance, the APS was not selective for appearance or motion per se. Instead, distinctive responses were found to the mismatch between appearance and motion: whereas suppression effects for the human and robot were similar to each other, they were stronger for the android, notably in bilateral anterior intraparietal sulcus, a key node in the APS. These results could reflect increased prediction error as the brain negotiates an agent that appears human, but does not move biologically, and help explain the ‘uncanny valley’ phenomenon.

Retinotopy and Attention in Human Occipital, Temporal, Parietal, and Frontal Cortex

Novel mapping stimuli composed of biological motion figures were used to study the extent and layout of multiple retinotopic regions in the entire human brain and to examine the independent manipulation of retinotopic responses by visual stimuli and by attention. A number of areas exhibited retinotopic activations, including full or partial visual field representations in occipital cortex, the precuneus, motion-sensitive temporal cortex (extending into the superior temporal sulcus), the intraparietal sulcus, and the vicinity of the frontal eye fields in frontal cortex. Early visual areas showed mainly stimulus-driven retinotopy; parietal and frontal areas were driven primarily by attention; and lateral temporal regions could be driven by both. We found clear spatial specificity of attentional modulation not just in early visual areas but also in classical attentional control areas in parietal and frontal cortex. Indeed, strong spatiotopic activity in these areas could be evoked by directed attention alone. Conversely, motion-sensitive temporal regions, while exhibiting attentional modulation, also responded significantly when attention was directed away from the retinotopic stimuli.

Modulation of bold response in motion-sensitive lateral temporal cortex by real and fictive motion sentences

Can linguistic semantics affect neural processing in feature-specific visual regions? Specifically, when we hear a sentence describing a situation that includes motion, do we engage neural processes that are part of the visual perception of motion? How about if a motion verb was used figuratively, not literally? We used fMRI to investigate whether semantic content can “penetrate” and modulate neural populations that are selective to specific visual properties during natural language comprehension. Participants were presented audiovisually with three kinds of sentences: motion sentences (“The wild horse crossed the barren field.”), static sentences, (“The black horse stood in the barren field.”), and fictive motion sentences (“The hiking trail crossed the barren field.”). Motion-sensitive visual areas (MT+) were localized individually in each participant as well as face-selective visual regions (fusiform face area; FFA). MT+ was activated significantly more for motion sentences than the other sentence types. Fictive motion sentences also activated MT+ more than the static sentences. Importantly, no modulation of neural responses was found in FFA. Our findings suggest that the neural substrates of linguistic semantics include early visual areas specifically related to the represented semantics and that figurative uses of motion verbs also engage these neural systems, but to a lesser extent. These data are consistent with a view of language comprehension as an embodied process, with neural substrates as far reaching as early sensory brain areas that are specifically related to the represented semantics.

Effects of tms over premotor and superior temporal cortices on biological motion perception

Using MRI-guided off-line TMS, we targeted two areas implicated in biological motion processing: ventral premotor cortex (PMC) and posterior STS (pSTS), plus a control site (vertex). Participants performed a detection task on noise-masked point-light displays of human animations and scrambled versions of the same stimuli. Perceptual thresholds were determined individually. Performance was measured before and after 20 sec of continuous theta burst stimulation of PMC, pSTS, and control (each tested on different days). A matched nonbiological object motion task (detecting point-light displays of translating polygons) served as a further control. Data were analyzed within the signal detection framework. Sensitivity (d′) significantly decreased after TMS of PMC. There was a marginally significant decline in d′ after TMS of pSTS but not of control site. Criterion (response bias) was also significantly affected by TMS over PMC. Specifically, subjects made significantly more false alarms post-TMS of PMC. These effects were specific to biological motion and not found for the nonbiological control task. To summarize, we report that TMS over PMC reduces sensitivity to biological motion perception. Furthermore, pSTS and PMC may have distinct roles in biological motion processing as behavioral performance differs following TMS in each area. Only TMS over PMC led to a significant increase in false alarms, which was not found for other brain areas or for the control task. TMS of PMC may have interfered with refining judgments about biological motion perception, possibly because access to the perceivers own motor representations was compromised.

Unaffected perceptual thresholds for biological and non-biological form-from-motion perception in autism spectrum conditions

Background Perception of biological motion is linked to the action perception system in the human brain, abnormalities within which have been suggested to underlie impairments in social domains observed in autism spectrum conditions (ASC). However, the literature on biological motion perception in ASC is heterogeneous and it is unclear whether deficits are specific to biological motion, or might generalize to form-from-motion perception. Methodology and Principal Findings We compared psychophysical thresholds for both biological and non-biological form-from-motion perception in adults with ASC and controls. Participants viewed point-light displays depicting a walking person (Biological Motion), a translating rectangle (Structured Object) or a translating unfamiliar shape (Unstructured Object). The figures were embedded in noise dots that moved similarly and the task was to determine direction of movement. The number of noise dots varied on each trial and perceptual thresholds were estimated adaptively. We found no evidence for an impairment in biological or non-biological object motion perception in individuals with ASC. Perceptual thresholds in the three conditions were almost identical between the ASC and control groups. Discussion and Conclusions Impairments in biological motion and non-biological form-from-motion perception are not across the board in ASC, and are only found for some stimuli and tasks. We discuss our results in relation to other findings in the literature, the heterogeneity of which likely relates to the different tasks performed. It appears that individuals with ASC are unaffected in perceptual processing of form-from-motion, but may exhibit impairments in higher order judgments such as emotion processing. It is important to identify more specifically which processes of motion perception are impacted in ASC before a link can be made between perceptual deficits and the higher-level features of the disorder.

Individual differences in the perception of biological motion: Links to social cognition and motor imagery

Biological motion perception is often claimed to support social cognition, and to rely upon embodied representations and motor imagery. Are people with higher levels of social traits or more vivid motor imagery better at biological motion perception? We administered four experiments measuring sensitivity in using (global) form and (local) motion cues in biological motion, plus well-established measures of social cognition (e.g., empathy) and motor imagery (e.g., kinesthetic motor imagery). This first systematic investigation of individual variability in biological motion processing demonstrated significant relationships between these domains, along with a dissociation. Sensitivity for using form cues in biological motion processing was correlated with social (and not the imagery) measures; sensitivity for using motion cues was correlated with motor imagery (and not the social) measures. These results could not be explained by performance on non-biological control stimuli. We thus show that although both social cognition and motor imagery predict sensitivity to biological motion, these skills likely tap into different aspects of perception.

Neuroanatomical correlates of biological motion detection

Biological motion detection is both commonplace and important, but there is great inter-individual variability in this ability, the neural basis of which is currently unknown. Here we examined whether the behavioral variability in biological motion detection is reflected in brain anatomy. Perceptual thresholds for detection of biological motion and control conditions (non-biological object motion detection and motion coherence) were determined in a group of healthy human adults (n=31) together with structural magnetic resonance images of the brain. Voxel based morphometry analyzes revealed that gray matter volumes of left posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and left ventral premotor cortex (vPMC) significantly predicted individual differences in biological motion detection, but showed no significant relationship with performance on the control tasks. Our study reveals a neural basis associated with the inter-individual variability in biological motion detection, reliably linking the neuroanatomical structure of left pSTS and vPMC with biological motion detection performance.

Reduced sensitivity to minimum-jerk biological motion in autism spectrum conditions.

We compared psychophysical thresholds for biological and non-biological motion detection in adults with autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) and controls. Participants watched animations of a biological stimulus (a moving hand) or a non-biological stimulus (a falling tennis ball). The velocity profile of the movement was varied between 100% natural motion (minimum-jerk (MJ) for the hand; gravitational (G) for the ball) and 100% constant velocity (CV). Participants were asked to judge which animation was ‘less natural’ in a two-interval forced-choice paradigm and thresholds were estimated adaptively. There was a significant interaction between group and condition. Thresholds in the MJ condition were lower than in the G condition for the NC group whereas there was no difference between the thresholds in the two conditions for the ASC group. Thus, unlike the controls, the ASC group did not show an increased sensitivity for perturbation to biological over non-biological velocity profiles.