Dissociable roles of the inferior longitudinal fasciculus and fornix in face and place perception

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Abstract

We tested a novel hypothesis, generated from representational accounts of medial temporal lobe (MTL) function, that the major white matter tracts converging on perirhinal cortex (PrC) and hippocampus (HC) would be differentially involved in face and scene perception, respectively. Diffusion tensor imaging was applied in healthy participants alongside an odd-one-out paradigm sensitive to PrC and HC lesions in animals and humans. Microstructure of inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF, connecting occipital and ventro-anterior temporal lobe, including PrC) and fornix (the main HC input/output pathway) correlated with accuracy on odd-one-out judgements involving faces and scenes, respectively. Similarly, BOLD response in PrC and HC, elicited during oddity judgements, was correlated with face and scene oddity performance, respectively. We also observed associations between ILF and fornix microstructure and category-selective BOLD response in PrC and HC, respectively. These striking three-way associations highlight functionally dissociable, structurally instantiated MTL neurocognitive networks for complex face and scene perception.

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Carl J Hodgetts

School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales

For correspondence
hodgettscj@cardiff.ac.uk

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Mark Postans

School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Jonathan P Shine

School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Derek K Jones

School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Andrew D Lawrence

School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Kim S Graham

Wales Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Ethics

Human subjects: The study was approved by the School of Psychology, Cardiff University Ethics Committee. Written informed consent was obtained from each participant before taking part in the experiment, including consent to publish results.

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.