Neural substrates of animal mental imagery: calcarine sulcus and dorsal pathway involvement--an fMRI study.

Full Abstract

Neural response was measured using fMRI in six healthy volunteers, performing a mental imagery task, using verbal cues exclusively. They listened to a list of animal names from which to generate a mental image, and listened passively to a list of abstract words. They were tested twice, using the same protocol. SPM99-processed results showed for both sessions activation in the calcarine sulcus and local activation foci, mainly in the occipito-parietal region. Other studies involving figurative mental imagery using verbal cues, have shown activation in the occipito-temporal area, but none in the calcarine sulcus or in the dorsal route. We account for the discrepancies relative to previous mental imagery studies using verbal cues, in terms of differences in the experimental conditions. In our opinion, restricting the stimuli to a single semantic category (animals) and increasing the time dedicated to the production of MI, may have enhanced the components of the pictures. This mental imagery generation protocol shows the importance of the design of experimental tasks on anatomo-functional responses.

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Author information

Author/s: Lambert, Séverine (S); Sampaio, Eliana (E); Scheiber, Christian (C); Mauss, Yves (Y);

Affiliation: Laboratoire d'Etudes des Systèmes Perceptifs et Emotionnels, Université Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg, 12 rue Goethe, 67000 Strasbourg, France.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Brain research (Brain Res), published in Netherlands. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Jan; vol 924 (issue 2) : pp 176-83

Dates: Created 2001/12/25; Completed 2002/03/05; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 11750903, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Humans
Imagination - physiology
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Neural Pathways
Visual Cortex - cytology; physiology

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