RRC ID 50535
著者 Dinh HT, Nishimaru H, Matsumoto J, Takamura Y, Le QV, Hori E, Maior RS, Tomaz C, Tran AH, Ono T, Nishijo H.
タイトル Superior Neuronal Detection of Snakes and Conspecific Faces in the Macaque Medial Prefrontal Cortex.
ジャーナル Cereb Cortex
Abstract Snakes and conspecific faces are quickly and efficiently detected in primates. Because the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has been implicated in attentional allocation to biologically relevant stimuli, we hypothesized that it might also be highly responsive to snakes and conspecific faces. In this study, neuronal responses in the monkey mPFC were recorded, while monkeys discriminated 8 categories of visual stimuli. Here, we show that the monkey mPFC neuronal responses to snakes and conspecific faces were unique. First, the ratios of the neurons that responded strongly to snakes and monkey faces were greater than those of the neurons that responded strongly to the other stimuli. Second, mPFC neurons responded stronger and faster to snakes and monkey faces than the other categories of stimuli. Third, neuronal responses to snakes were unaffected by low-pass filtering of the images. Finally, activity patterns of responsive mPFC neurons discriminated snakes from the other stimuli in the second 50 ms period and monkey faces in the third period after stimulus onset. These response features indicate that the mPFC processes fast and coarse visual information of snakes and monkey faces, and support the hypothesis that snakes and social environments have shaped the primate visual system over evolutionary time.
巻・号 28(6)
ページ 2131-2145
公開日 2018-6-1
DOI 10.1093/cercor/bhx118
PII 3813670
PMID 28498964
MeSH Animals Face Female Macaca / physiology* Male Pattern Recognition, Visual / physiology* Prefrontal Cortex / physiology* Snakes*
IF 5.043
引用数 1
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