Fusiform Gyrus Volume Reduction and Facial Recognition in Chronic Schizophrenia

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Abstract
THE FUSIFORM gyrus (FG), or occipitotemporal gyrus, is located on the ventromedial surface of the temporal and occipital lobes. The ventral occipitotemporal pathway, which includes the FG, is reported to be related to object information,1-4 whereas the dorsal occipitoparietal pathway is more likely related to spatial information.5 Among visual stimuli, faces are important, meaningful objects. Although both face and object perceptions use the ventral pathway, faces are perceived, at least in part, by a separate processing stream in the ventral pathway.4 For example, in electrophysiologic studies, visual evoked potentials recorded from subdural electrodes resulted in large N170 potentials that were elicited by faces but not by other objects in the FG and inferotemporal gyrus.6-8 Additionally, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Kanwisher et al1 reported that the middle portion of the FG responded selectively to faces, leading them to call it the fusiform face area. In other functional MRI studies, the response of the lateral FG to faces was reported as larger than to the medial FG.2,3 Furthermore, Desimone et al9 found a separate population of cells that responded selectively to faces in the inferior temporal cortex of macaques.