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Science 28 September 2001:
Vol. 293. no. 5539, pp. 2470 - 2473
DOI: 10.1126/science.1063414
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Reports

A Cortical Area Selective for Visual Processing of the Human Body

Paul E. Downing,1* Yuhong Jiang,2 Miles Shuman,2 Nancy Kanwisher23

Despite extensive evidence for regions of human visual cortex that respond selectively to faces, few studies have considered the cortical representation of the appearance of the rest of the human body. We present a series of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies revealing substantial evidence for a distinct cortical region in humans that responds selectively to images of the human body, as compared with a wide range of control stimuli. This region was found in the lateral occipitotemporal cortex in all subjects tested and apparently reflects a specialized neural system for the visual perception of the human body.

1 School of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Wales, Bangor LL57 2AS, UK.
2 Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3 Massachusetts General Hospital-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging Center, 149 13th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: p.downing{at}bangor.ac.uk

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