Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 101, Issue 26, Pages 9827-9832Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0403559101
Keywords
face perception; functional MRI
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Single-unit recordings and functional brain imaging studies have shown reduced neural responses to repeated stimuli in the visual cortex. By using event-related functional MRI, we compared the activation evoked by repetitions of neutral and fearful faces,which were either task relevant (targets) or irrelevant (distracters). We found that within the inferior occipital gyri, lateral fusiform gyri, superior temporal sulci, amygdala, and the inferior frontal gyri/insula, targets evoked stronger responses than distracters and their repetition was associated with significantly reduced responses. Repetition suppression, as manifested by the difference in response amplitude between the first and third repetitions of a target, was stronger for fearful than neutral faces. Distracter faces, regardless of their repetition or valence, evoked negligible activation, indicating top-down attenuation of behaviorally irrelevant stimuli. Our findings demonstrate a three-way interaction between emotional valence, repetition, and task relevance and suggest that repetition suppression is influenced by high-level cognitive processes in the human brain.
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