Comparing Parietal Quantity-Processing Mechanisms between Humans and Macaques

Quantity processing studies typically assume functional homology between regions within macaque and human intraparietal sulcus (IPS), where apparently similar locations respond to broadly similar tasks. However, macaque single cell neurophysiology is difficult to compare to human functional magnetic...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Trends in cognitive sciences 2017-10, Vol.21 (10), p.779-793
Main Authors: Harvey, Ben M., Ferri, Stefania, Orban, Guy A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Brain Mapping
functional homology
functional magnetic resonance imaging
Humans
Macaca
macaque
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Mathematics - methods
numerosity
Parietal Lobe - physiology
Photic Stimulation - methods
quantity
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Quantity processing studies typically assume functional homology between regions within macaque and human intraparietal sulcus (IPS), where apparently similar locations respond to broadly similar tasks. However, macaque single cell neurophysiology is difficult to compare to human functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); particularly in multivoxel pattern analysis and adaptation paradigms, or where different tasks are used. fMRI approaches incorporating neural tuning models allow closer comparison, revealing human numerosity-selective responses only outside the IPS. Extensive functional similarities support this novel homology of physical quantity processing. Human IPS instead houses a network responding to comparisons of physical quantities, symbolic numbers, and other stimulus features. This network likely reflects interactions between physical quantity processing, spatial processing, and (in humans) linguistic processing. Human IPS was thought to have tuned responses to physical quantities like numerosity as macaque IPS contains such responses and human IPS is activated in some fMRI quantity processing paradigms. Comparing human fMRI to macaque single neuron responses is difficult when using different tasks or fMRI paradigms without straightforward neural response interpretations. fMRI paradigms incorporating explicit neural encoding models show physical quantity responses only outside human IPS. Human IPS responds to comparisons of physical quantities, symbolic numbers, and nonquantitative features alike, forming a distinct network from selective responses to physical quantities. This highlights the difficulty of comparing human and macaque neural responses to different tasks, measured with different methods. Macaque fMRI and encoding model analyses of human fMRI data help bridge this gap.
ISSN:1364-6613
1879-307X
DOI:10.1016/j.tics.2017.07.002