Direct intracranial recording of body-selective responses in human extrastriate visual cortex.

We recorded intracranial local field potentials (iLFPs) in right extrastriate visual cortex of a patient prior to surgery for epilepsy. Visual evoked potentials revealed a highly selective response to images of bodies, relative to faces, mammals, and tools, which was restricted to a focal region in the lateral occipitotemporal cortex that corresponds to the location of the extrastriate body area (EBA). Body-selective activity started around 190 ms and peaked 260 ms post-stimulus onset. These findings provide the first direct electrophysiological evidence for an early visual processing stage in human lateral occipitotemporal cortex that is specialized for processing human body shapes.