J. Cogn. Neurosci.
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Klein, I.
Right arrow Articles by Le Bihan, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Klein, I.
Right arrow Articles by Le Bihan, D.
(Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2000;12:S15-S23.)
© 2000 The MIT Press

Transient Activity in the Human Calcarine Cortex During Visual-Mental Imagery: An Event-Related fMRI Study

Isabelle Klein

SHFJ/DRM/DSV/CEA, Orsay, France

Anne-Lise Paradis

SHFJ/DRM/DSV/CEA, Orsay, France and LPPA-CNRS/College de France

Jean-Baptiste Poline

SHFJ/DRM/DSV/CEA, Orsay, France

Stephen M. Kosslyn

Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital

Denis Le Bihan

SHFJ/DRM/DSV/CEA, Orsay, France

Although it is largely accepted that visual-mental imagery and perception draw on many of the same neural structures, the existence and nature of neural processing in the primary visual cortex (or area V1) during visual imagery remains controversial. We tested two general hypotheses: The first was that V1 is activated only when images with many details are formed and used, and the second was that V1 is activated whenever images are formed, even if they are not necessarily used to perform a task. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (ER-fMRI) to detect and characterize the activity in the calcarine sulcus (which contains the primary visual cortex) during single instances of mental imagery. The results revealed reproducible transient activity in this area whenever participants generated or evaluated a mental image. This transient activity was strongly enhanced when participants evaluated characteristics of objects, whether or not details actually needed to be extracted from the image to perform the task. These results show that visual imagery processing commonly involves the earliest stages of the visual system.






HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
NEURAL COMPUTATION J COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE MIT PRESS JOURNALS
Copyright © 2000 by The MIT Press.