Epihova, G., Cook, R. and Andrews, T.J. (2024) Global changes in the pattern of connectivity in developmental prosopagnosia. Cerebral Cortex, 34 (11). bhae435. ISSN 1047-3211
Abstract
Developmental prosopagnosia is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by difficulties in recognizing the identity of a person from their face. While current theories of the neural basis of developmental prosopagnosia focus on the face processing network, successful recognition of face identities requires broader integration of neural signals across the whole brain. Here, we asked whether disruptions in global functional and structural connectivity contribute to the face recognition difficulties observed in developmental prosopagnosia. We found that the left temporal pole was less functionally connected to the rest of the brain in developmental prosopagnosia. This was driven by weaker contralateral connections to the middle and inferior temporal gyri, as well as to the medial prefrontal cortex. The pattern of global connectivity in the left temporal pole was also disrupted in developmental prosopagnosia. Critically, these changes in global functional connectivity were only evident when participants viewed faces. Structural connectivity analysis revealed localized reductions in connectivity between the left temporal pole and a number of regions, including the fusiform gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, and orbitofrontal cortex. Our findings underscore the importance of whole-brain integration in supporting typical face recognition and provide evidence that disruptions in connectivity involving the left temporal pole may underlie the characteristic difficulties of developmental prosopagnosia.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | face recognition, developmental prosopagnosia, functional connectivity, structural connectivity |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Psychology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 11 Feb 2025 12:36 |
Last Modified: | 11 Feb 2025 12:36 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/cercor/bhae435 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:223113 |