Mapping multiple visual areas in the human brain with a short fMRI sequence.

It is a fundamental insight of neuroscience that the cerebral cortex is divided into spatially separated and functionally distinct areas. In this study, we tried to map a large number of visual areas in individual subjects passively viewing a simple stimulus sequence during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 1.5 T. The blocked stimulus sequence contrasted static object photographs with video takes of movement through natural indoor and outdoor scenes, alternated with a control fixation task. Two runs of the 5-min sequence sufficed to invoke 29 distinguishable activations, 16 (13 bilateral) of which were observed in all 10 participants. At the ventral side, object responsive activations were organized along the lateral occipital-temporal surface and near the collateral and occipital-temporal sulci. The latter activations, corresponding to the lateral occipital complex, showed a different activation profile from those near the collateral sulcus, most likely corresponding to the color constancy areas V4/V8-V4alpha. A potentially new fusiform object area was seen in 6 subjects, even more anterior than the parahippocampal place area. At the dorsal side, consistent activations were mainly related to motion stimuli and included the well-known areas V3a, VIPS, POIPS, hV5+, STS and the cingulate sulcus. There was consistent activation in the parietal-occipital sulcus, containing the areas V6a and V6. In addition, all subjects showed activation in the superior-anterior precuneus. Thus, the short stimulus sequence robustly invoked multiple visual areas and can be used to map the organization of the visual system in normal and brain-damaged individuals.