Increased Functional Connectivity Between Occipitotemporal Cortex and Frontoparietal Attention Network During Visual Processing

Kaundinya Gopinath¹, Simon Lacey², Shaheen Ahmed¹, Randall Stilla², K. Sathian²

The human occipitotemporal cortex (OTC) contains a number of regions specialized for processing particular types of sensory stimuli: including the lateral occipital complex (LOC), the fusiform face area (FFA), the parahippocampal place area (PPA), and the extrastriate body area (EBA), exhibiting selectivity for objects, faces, scenes and body-parts, respectively. This study examined functional connectivity patterns of functionally localized LOC, EBA, FFA and PPA, during rest and from residuals of OTC localizer fMRI data. Results indicate increased OTC functional connectivity (in the residuals data) to frontoparietal attention network during visual processing compared to rest, reflecting the attention demands of the task.