Brain Research 924 (2002) 176–183
www.elsevier.com/locate/bres
Research report
Neural substrates of animal mental imagery: calcarine sulcus and
dorsal pathway involvement — an fMRI study
a,b a,c, d d
*
´
Severine Lambert , Eliana Sampaio , Christian Scheiber , Yves Mauss
a
`´
Laboratoire d
’
Etudes des Systemes Perceptifs et Emotionnels
,
Universite Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg
,12
rue Goethe
, 67000
Strasbourg
,
France
b
´
Universite Claude Bernard of Lyon
,
Lyon
,
France
c
´´
Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers
,2,
rue Conte
, 75003
Paris
,
France
d
´´´
UPRES-A
7004
ULP/CNRS
,
Applications Biologiques et Medicales de la RMN et Genie Biologique et Medical
,
Institut de Physique Biologique
,
´´
Faculte de Medecine
,4
rue Kirschleger
, 67085
Strasbourg Cedex
,
France
Accepted 5 October 2001
Abstract
Neural response was measured using fMRI in six healthy volunteers, performing a mental imagery task, using verbal cues exclusively.
They listened to a list of animal names from which to generate a mental image, and listened passively to a list of abstract words. They
were tested twice, using the same protocol. SPM99-processed results showed for both sessions activation in the calcarine sulcus and local
activation foci, mainly in the occipito-parietal region. Other studies involving figurative mental imagery using verbal cues, have shown
activation in the occipito-temporal area, but none in the calcarine sulcus or in the dorsal route. We account for the discrepancies relative to
previous mental imagery studies using verbal cues, in terms of differences in the experimental conditions. In our opinion, restricting the
stimuli to a single semantic category (animals) and increasing the time dedicated to the production of MI, may have enhanced the
components of the pictures. This mental imagery generation protocol shows the importance of the design of experimental tasks on
anatomo-functional responses. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Theme
:
Neural basis of behavior
Topic
:
Cognition
Keywords
:
Mental imagery; Primary visual area; Dorsal pathway; Ventral pathway; fMRI
1. Introduction The where stream conveys spatial information along the
(dorsal) occipito-parietal pathway [18]. Comparatively to
Research on brain imaging and case studies in neuro- the associative visual areas, the implication of the primary
psychology have shown similar neural architectures be- visual area (PVA) in a MI task is more controversial
tween visual perception and visual mental images (MI) [14,24]. The major difference between visual perception
[5,13,19]. Roughly, the two pathways of associative visual and visual mental imagery is the presence of a visual
areas (what stream and where stream) identified as being stimulation in the first one involving a bottom-up mecha-
involved in the processing of visual perception [9], are also nism (i.e. visual information travels through the PVA,
involved in MI [19]. The what stream conveys figurative towards the associative visual areas). According to several
information relative to stimuli along the (ventral) occipito- functional imaging studies, the neural substrates of MI
temporal pathway, including the fusiform gyrus [3,20]. generation would encompass exclusively the two (ventral
and dorsal) neuro-anatomical routes [3,18–20], leaving out
the PVA owing to the lack of visual stimulation. For other
Abbreviations: BA, Brodmann area; fMRI, functional magnetic reso-
authors, the high resolution of visual MI (i.e. representa-
nance imaging; MI, mental image; PVA, primary visual area; ROI, region
tion of complex patterns), which to a certain extent, may
of interest
make mental imagery comparable to actual visual stimula-
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: 133-3-8825-5909; fax: 133-3-9024-
tion, may not be a sufficient factor to induce activation in
1904.
E-mail address
:
eliana.sampaio@psycho-ulp.u-strasbg.fr (E. Sampaio).
the PVA [21,24]. In some of the studies in which PVA
0006-8993/02/$ – see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S0006-8993(01)03232-2