Naming and recognizing famous faces in temporal lobe epilepsy

Glosser, Guila; Salvucci, Alana; Chiaravalloti, Nancy D.

doi:10.1212/01.wnl.0000073621.18013.e1

Cited by 133 publications

(124 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…31). In these patients, face recognition difficulties were more commonly associated with resection of the right anterior temporal lobe, whereas resection of the left anterior temporal lobe caused anomia, difficulties in naming of famous or personally familiar faces (31). This evidence suggests that the anterior temporal lobe may be critical for social aspects of face processing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

An anterior temporal face patch in human cortex, predicted by macaque maps

Rajimehr

Young

Tootell

2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

254

235

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Increasing evidence suggests that primate visual cortex has a specialized architecture for processing discrete object categories such as faces. Human fMRI studies have described a localized region in the fusiform gyrus [the fusiform face area (FFA)] that responds selectively to faces. In contrast, in nonhuman primates, electrophysiological and fMRI studies have instead revealed 2 apparently analogous regions of face representation: the posterior temporal face patch (PTFP) and the anterior temporal face patch (ATFP). An earlier study suggested that human FFA is homologous to the PTFP in macaque. However, in humans, no obvious homologue of the macaque ATFP has been demonstrated. Here, we used fMRI to map face-selective sites in both humans and macaques, based on equivalent stimuli in a quantitative topographic comparison. This fMRI evidence suggests that such a face-selective area exists in human anterior inferotemporal cortex, comprising the apparent homologue of the fMRI-defined ATFP in macaques.face processing ͉ fMRI ͉ inferotemporal cortex ͉ macaque-human homology T he fusiform face area (FFA) is one of the most distinctive regions in the human ventral temporal cortex. A wide range of noninvasive techniques, including PET, fMRI, ERP, and MEG have shown that FFA responds selectively to images of faces, relative to a wide variety of control objects (1-7). Such approaches have revealed an enormous amount about face selectivity in this distinctive region of human cerebral cortex.Such noninvasive techniques cannot furnish the kind of incisive information that is available from classical neurobiological techniques (e.g., single-unit recording) in nonhuman primates. These 2 realms have begun to be bridged by recent fMRI studies in awake monkeys, which demonstrated that apparently homologous face-selective regions also exist in macaque inferotemporal (IT) cortex (8,9). Subsequent experiments reported that Ϸ97% of the single units in the largest face-selective region (the so-called posterior temporal face patch, located in caudal TE) respond strongly and selectively to images of faces, compared with images of control objects (10). This fMRI and physiological evidence supports the idea that this region of monkey cortex is indeed selective for faces.A computational transformation concluded that this posterior temporal face patch (PTFP) in macaques is located in a cortical region that corresponds topographically to area FFA in human subjects (8). This analysis assumes that neighborhood relations between specific cortical areas are evolutionarily conserved across the sheet of cortical gray matter, as validated in many previous human-monkey comparisons (11-14).However, this conclusion raises a significant issue. In macaques, an additional face-selective region is consistently found further anterior in the temporal lobe, in rostral TE (8-10, 15, 16); here, this is termed the anterior temporal face patch (ATFP). However, in humans, no such area (i.e., anterior to FFA) has been reported by conventional fMRI mapping of face rep...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

An anterior temporal face patch in human cortex, predicted by macaque maps

Rajimehr

Young

Tootell

2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

254

235

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“…Performance of epilepsy patients undergoing TL resection was worse on these tasks than in a group of unoperated patients. Glosser et al (2003) interpreted this to indicate that it was the removal of anterior TL structures that contributed to the observed deficit, although this was not conclusively established. …”

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confidence: 97%

“…There has also been little attention paid to the distinction between naming (i.e., retrieving the lexical label that corresponds to an entity) and recognition (i.e., retrieving conceptual/semantic knowledge that allows the understanding of what an entity is), with most studies focusing exclusively on naming. Despite these limitations, each study found some evidence for category-specific naming deficits in postsurgical epilepsy patients, although the results of these studies have often conflicted and the magnitude of the observed deficits appears to have been greatly underestimated.Research examining category-specific recognition deficits in epilepsy has been restricted to three studies exploring the recognition of famous faces (Glosser, Salvucci, & Chiaravalloti, 2003;Seidenberg et al, 2002;Viskontas, McAndrews, & Moscovitch, 2002). All three found recognition of famous faces to be worse for patients who have undergone right TL resection.…”

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confidence: 99%

Category-specific naming and recognition deficits in temporal lobe epilepsy surgical patients

et al. 2008

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Objective-Based upon Damasio's "Convergence Zone" model of semantic memory, we predicted that epilepsy surgical patients with anterior temporal lobe (TL) seizure onset would exhibit a pattern of category-specific naming and recognition deficits not observed in patients with seizures arising elsewhere. Methods-We assessed epilepsy patients with unilateral seizure onset of anterior TL or other origin (n = 22), pre-or postoperatively, using a set of category-specific items and a conventional measure of visual naming (Boston Naming Test: BNT).Results-Category-specific naming deficits were exhibited by patients with dominant anterior TL seizure onset/resection for famous faces and animals, while category-specific recognition deficits for these same categories were exhibited by patients with nondominant anterior TL onset/resection. Patients with other seizure onset did not exhibit category-specific deficits. Naming and recognition deficits were frequently not detected by the BNT, which samples only a limited range of stimuli.Interpretation-Consistent with the "convergence zone" framework, results suggest that the nondominant anterior TL plays a major role in binding sensory information into conceptual percepts for certain stimuli, while dominant TL regions function to provide a link to verbal labels for these percepts. Although observed category-specific deficits were striking, they were often missed by the BNT, suggesting that they are more prevalent than recognized in both pre-and postsurgical epilepsy patients. Systematic investigation of these deficits could lead to more refined models of semantic memory, aid in the localization of seizures, and contribute to modifications in surgical technique and patient selection in epilepsy surgery to improve neurocognitive outcome. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptNeuropsychologia. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2009 April 1. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptKeywords semantic memory; temporal lobe epilepsy; category-specific deficits; epilepsy surgery; naming deficits While several models of semantic memory exist, most agree that the temporal lobes play an important role in supporting this cognitive construct (Caramazza & Shelton, 1998;H. Damasio, Tranel, Grabowski, Adolphs, & Damasio, 2004;Gainotti, 2006). Research suggesting a role for the temporal lobes in semantic memory includes a variety of studies demonstrating deficits in this area in patients with TL impairment (Bayles, Tomoeda, & Trosset, 1990;Chan et al., 1993;Garrard, Lam...

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“…This incidental recollection has been shown to occur in the context of identifying famous people (3), and has also been shown to involve the hippocampus (4,5). Furthermore, famous faces and names have long been used to query the integrity of recent and remote semantic memory in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) (3,(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11). Finally, autobiographical memory retrieval consistently engages the medial temporal lobe (12), suggesting that cells in this region may respond differentially to faces that elicit autobiographical memory retrieval.…”

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confidence: 99%

Human medial temporal lobe neurons respond preferentially to personally relevant images

Viskontas

Quiroga

Fried

2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

113

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People with whom one is personally acquainted tend to elicit richer and more vivid memories than people with whom one does not have a personal connection. Recent findings from neurons in the human medial temporal lobe ( epilepsy ͉ hippocampus ͉ memory ͉ familiarity ͉ single-unit recordings H umans are self-absorbed by nature. One virtually infallible method of enhancing memory is simply to relate the to-be-remembered information to one's self. The self-reference effect (1) is a well-documented encoding enhancement: people are more likely to remember items that are personally relevant, than items that have undergone some other deep or semantically elaborative encoding processes (2). One mechanism by which the self-referent effect might operate is via the incidental recollection of a rich network of information related to past experiences with that particular item. In addition, incidental recollection of related autobiographical associations can lead to performance advantages such as enhanced memory and speeded responding (3). This incidental recollection has been shown to occur in the context of identifying famous people (3), and has also been shown to involve the hippocampus (4, 5). Furthermore, famous faces and names have long been used to query the integrity of recent and remote semantic memory in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) (3, 6-11). Finally, autobiographical memory retrieval consistently engages the medial temporal lobe (12), suggesting that cells in this region may respond differentially to faces that elicit autobiographical memory retrieval.Recently, recordings from the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) have shown that individual neurons can be highly selective in terms of the stimuli to which they respond (13). Out of a set of about 100 visual images across several categories, such as faces, animals, and landmarks, some cells showed robust responses to only a handful of pictures pertaining to a single conceptual category, such a particular famous person. This selectivity provides an important clue as to the mechanism by which the brain represents information currently in awareness (14). In animals, selective sparse coding has also been observed in recordings from the MTL (15, 16). In fact, the idea that the MTL represents information using a sparse code is one of the basic tenets of most contemporary memory models (17)(18)(19). Given that the MTL assigns a relatively small number of neurons to a specific stimulus (20), and that the number of stimuli in the environment is very large, does a feature such as personal relevance, which may be related to the incidental recollection of autobiographically significant information (3), make a stimulus more likely to elicit a selective excitatory response from a cell? Here, we address the question of whether individual neurons in the MTL show a preference for personally relevant pictures.In this study, patients with intracranial electrodes implanted for clinical reasons were shown photographs of varying personal relevance: previously unknown faces and...

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Naming and recognizing famous faces in temporal lobe epilepsy

Cited by 133 publications

References 52 publications

An anterior temporal face patch in human cortex, predicted by macaque maps

An anterior temporal face patch in human cortex, predicted by macaque maps

Category-specific naming and recognition deficits in temporal lobe epilepsy surgical patients

Human medial temporal lobe neurons respond preferentially to personally relevant images

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