Differential Activity for Animals and Manipulable Objects in the Anterior Temporal Lobes

■ Neuropsychological evidence has highlighted the role of the anterior temporal lobes in the processing of conceptual knowledge. That putative role is only beginning to be investigated with fMRI as methodological advances are able to compensate for wellknown susceptibility artifacts that affect the quality of the BOLD signal. In this article, we described differential BOLD activation for pictures of animals and manipulable objects in the anterior temporal lobes, consistent with previous neuropsychological findings. Furthermore, we found that the pattern of BOLD signal in the anterior temporal lobes is qualitatively different from that in the fusiform gyri. The latter regions are activated to different extents but always above baseline by images of the preferred and of the nonpreferred categories, whereas the anterior temporal lobes tend to be activated by images of the preferred category and deactivated (BOLD below baseline) by images of the nonpreferred category. In our experimenta...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: JOCN
• Authors: Stefano Anzellotti, Bradford Z. Mahon, Jens Schwarzbach, Alfonso Caramazza
• Keywords: Gyri, JOCN 2011, Temporal Lobes, Temporal Pole