Effects of Abnormal Early Experience on IT Circuitry

Project Summary The goal of the proposed research is to probe object-recognition circuitry in inferotemporal cortex by specific manipulations of early visual experience. In adult humans and monkeys discrete regions of the temporal lobe are specialized for processing particular object categories, such as faces, text, bodies, or places. These domains underlie complex object recognition. Visual experience of these categories is both necessary and sufficient to produce domains, and the goal is to explore how specific abnormal early visual experience changes neuronal selectivity.