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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access first published online on August 22, 2007
This version published online on April 7, 2008
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhm140
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© 2007 The Authors
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Spatio temporal Dynamics of Face Recognition

Emmanuel J. Barbeau1, Margot J. Taylor2, Jean Regis3,4,5, Patrick Marquis3,4,5, Patrick Chauvel3,4,5 and Catherine Liégeois-Chauvel3,4,5

1 Centre de recherche Cerveau et Cognition, Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse 3, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Toulouse, France, 2 Diagnostic Imaging, Research Institute, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada, 3 Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U751, Marseille, France, 4 Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Marseille Timone, Marseille, France, 5 Université Aix-Marseille, Marseille, France

Address correspondence to Emmanuel J. Barbeau, Centre de recherche Cerveau et Cognition, UMR 5549, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse 3, Faculté de Médecine de Rangueil, 31062 Toulouse Cedex 9, France. Email: emmanuel.barbeau{at}cerco.ups-tlse.fr.

To better understand face recognition, it is necessary to identify not only which brain structures are implicated but also the dynamics of the neuronal activity in these structures. Latencies can then be compared to unravel the temporal dynamics of information processing at the distributed network level. To achieve high spatial and temporal resolution, we used intracerebral recordings in epileptic subjects while they performed a famous/unfamiliar face recognition task. The first components peaked at 110 ms in the fusiform gyrus (FG) and simultaneously in the inferior frontal gyrus, suggesting the early establishment of a large-scale network. This was followed by components peaking at 160 ms in 2 areas along the FG. Important stages of distributed parallel processes ensued at 240 and 360 ms involving up to 6 regions along the ventral visual pathway. The final components peaked at 480 ms in the hippocampus. These stages largely overlapped. Importantly, event-related potentials to famous faces differed from unfamiliar faces and control stimuli in all medial temporal lobe structures. The network was bilateral but more right sided. Thus, recognition of famous faces takes place through the establishment of a complex set of local and distributed processes that interact dynamically and may be an emergent property of these interactions.

Key Words: electrophysiology • epileptic patients • intracerebral recordings • model of face recognition • neural network


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