A Model of Emergent Category-specific Activation in the Posterior Fusiform Gyrus of Sighted and Congenitally Blind Populations.
J Cogn Neurosci
; 27(10): 1981-99, 2015 Oct.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26042499
Theories about the neural bases of semantic knowledge tend between two poles, one proposing that distinct brain regions are innately dedicated to different conceptual domains and the other suggesting that all concepts are encoded within a single network. Category-sensitive functional activations in the fusiform cortex of the congenitally blind have been taken to support the former view but also raise several puzzles. We use neural network models to assess a hypothesis that spans the two poles: The interesting functional activation patterns reflect the base connectivity of a domain-general semantic network. Both similarities and differences between sighted and congenitally blind groups can emerge through learning in a neural network, but only in architectures adopting real anatomical constraints. Surprisingly, the same constraints suggest a novel account of a quite different phenomenon: the dyspraxia observed in patients with semantic impairments from anterior temporal pathology. From this work, we suggest that the cortical semantic network is wired not to encode knowledge of distinct conceptual domains but to promote learning about both conceptual and affordance structure in the environment.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Apraxias
/
Temporal Lobe
/
Brain Mapping
/
Blindness
/
Neural Networks, Computer
/
Learning
/
Nerve Net
Type of study:
Clinical_trials
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
J Cogn Neurosci
Journal subject:
NEUROLOGIA
Year:
2015
Document type:
Article
Country of publication:
Estados Unidos