Perceptual decision-making difficulty modulates feedforward effective connectivity to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Perceptual decision-making difficulty modulates feedforward effective connectivity to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Blog Article

Diverse cortical structures are known to coordinate activity as a network in relaying and processing of visual information to discriminate visual objects.However, how this discrimination is achieved is still largely unknown.To contribute to answering this question, we used face-house categorization tasks with three levels of noise in face and house images in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments involving thirty-three participants.The behavioral performance error and echofix spring reverb response time (RT) were correlated with noise in face-house images.We then built dynamical causal models (DCM) of fMRI blood-oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signals from the face and house category-specific regions in ventral temporal cortex, the fusiform face area (FFA) and parahippocampal place here area (PPA), and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC).

We found a strong feed-forward intrinsic connectivity pattern from FFA and PPA to dlPFC.Importantly, the feed-forward connectivity to dlPFC was significantly modulated by the perception of both faces and houses.The dlPFC-BOLD activity, the connectivity from FFA and PPA to the dlPFC all increased with noise level.These results suggest that the FFA-PPA-dlPFC network plays an important role for relaying and integrating competing sensory information to arrive at perceptual decisions.