Abstract
The relationship among brain structure, brain function, and behavior is of major interest in neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and psychology. This relationship is especially intriguing when considering hominoid-specific brain structures because they cannot be studied in widely examined models in neuroscience such as mice, marmosets, and macaques. The fusiform gyrus (FG) is a hominoid-specific structure critical for face processing that is abnormal in individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DPs)—individuals who have severe deficits recognizing the faces of familiar people in the absence of brain damage. While previous studies have found anatomical and functional differences in the FG between DPs and NTs, no study has examined the shallow tertiary sulcus (mid-fusiform sulcus, MFS) within the FG that is a microanatomical, macroanatomical, and functional landmark in humans, as well as was recently shown to be present in non-human hominoids. Here, we implemented pre-registered analyses of neuroanatomy and face perception in NTs and DPs. Results show that the MFS was shorter in DPs than NTs. Furthermore, individual differences in MFS length in the right, but not left, hemisphere predicted individual differences in face perception. These results support theories linking brain structure and function to perception, as well as indicate that individual differences in MFS length can predict individual differences in face processing. Finally, these findings add to growing evidence supporting a relationship between morphological variability of late developing, tertiary sulci and individual differences in cognition.
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Data availability
Data used for this project have been made freely available on GitHub (https://github.com/cnl-berkeley/stable_projects/tree/main/SulcalVariability_FacePerception). Requests for further information or raw data should be directed to the Corresponding Author, Kevin Weiner(kweiner@berkeley.edu).
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a T32 HWNI training grant (Parker), as well as start-up funds from UC Berkeley (Weiner). Data collected in London was supported by an ESRC grant (RES-061-23-0400) to BD; data collection at Dartmouth was supported by a Rockefeller Foundation award.
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Parker, B.J., Voorhies, W.I., Jiahui, G. et al. Hominoid-specific sulcal variability is related to face perception ability. Brain Struct Funct 228, 677–685 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-023-02611-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-023-02611-4