September 2024
Volume 24, Issue 10
Open Access
Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract  |   September 2024
Cross-Species and Cross-Modality Studies of Food-Specific Brain Regions
Author Affiliations & Notes
  • Baoqi GONG
    Peking‐Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Beijing 100871, China
  • Haoxuan YAO
    Peking University School of Life Sciences, Beijing 100871, China
  • Yipeng LI
    Peking‐Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Beijing 100871, China
  • Wanru LI
    Peking‐Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Beijing 100871, China
  • Shiming TANG
  • Pinglei BAO
  • Footnotes
    Acknowledgements  National Science and Technology Innovation 2030-Major Project 2022ZD0204803, Natural Science Foundation of China Grant NSFC 32271081,32230043 to P. B. Natural Science Foundation of China Grant NSFC32200857, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Grant 2023M740125, 2022T150021, 2021M700004 to J.Y.
Journal of Vision September 2024, Vol.24, 489. doi:https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.24.10.489
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      Baoqi GONG, Haoxuan YAO, Yipeng LI, Wanru LI, Shiming TANG, Pinglei BAO; Cross-Species and Cross-Modality Studies of Food-Specific Brain Regions. Journal of Vision 2024;24(10):489. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.24.10.489.

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      © ARVO (1962-2015); The Authors (2016-present)

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Abstract

Research in both humans and non-human primates has revealed that the inferotemporal (IT) cortex contains specialized areas responsive to vital object categories like faces, bodies, and natural scenes, which are essential for survival and daily activities. Recent studies revealed a new category-specific area, the food area, by analyzing 7T fMRI data when subjects viewed the Natural Scenes Dataset (NSD). However, these findings are somewhat constrained as they are based on a narrow range of datasets and exclusively human participants. Our study addressed these constraints by employing human fMRI to measure brain responses to two kinds of food stimuli: Chinese (e.g., Baozi) and Western foods (e.g., Pizza), juxtaposed with non-food stimuli in a blocked design format. This method identified specific subregions in IT cortex showing a preference for food images. Interestingly, there was a stronger activation for Chinese foods, reflecting the dominant dietary exposure of the subjects. In expanding our research to non-human subjects, we scanned two macaques with two stimulus sets, each containing food and non-food images. One set came from NSD as natural stimuli, and the other comprised single objects. Both sets, despite their different low-level properties, indicated a consistent food-responsive network in the IT cortex with three distinct patches from posterior to anterior. Complementary to this, widefield calcium imaging conducted on the macaques identified a food-preferred area in the anterior IT cortex. Intriguingly, unlike human subjects, the area showed a marked preference for fruit images. These outcomes not only affirm the existence of a dedicated food area within the IT cortex across different species but also underscore the significant impact of visual experience in the formation and specialization of these food areas.

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