Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

The lateral occipital cortex (LOC) plays a key role in body action perception, but current understanding of its functions is still limited by the contrasts and tasks used and by the heterogeneity of the LOC body regions. This study adopted data-drive approaches and investigated the connectivity of the LOC body area for aggressive, defensive, and neutral body videos. In two human 7T fMRI experiments using independent component analysis, four adjacent body selective areas were detected within the LOC network showing distinct connectivity profiles and functional roles. Action type independent connectivity was found for the posterior-ventral areas to the visual cortex, the posterior-dorsal areas to the precuneus and the anterior areas to the frontal cortex. Action type specific connectivity modulations were found in middle frontal gyrus for the aggressive condition with increased connectivity to the anterior body areas and decreased connectivity to the posterior-dorsal body areas. For the defensive condition, however, area-nonspecific enhancement was found for the LOC-cingulate connectivity. These results suggested a functional dissociation related to the action type during body perception and a potential hierarchy within the LOC body system.