A Study Of Individual Differences In Face Recognition Based On Diffusion Tensor Imaging

Faces are possibly the most widely studied visual stimulus.In recent years,neurocognitive science studies have been confirmed there are some differences in the ability of face recognition between healthy individuals by a variety of behavioral tests.The neural mechanisms related to face recognition are also analyzed.In the findings of electroencephalograph(EEG)and functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI),a number of studies have observed neural activation in the temporal lobe and occipital cortex that are specific for face processing.Because the region related to face recognition in the temporal lobe is always around the fusiform of the temporal cortex,so that’s known as the fusiform face area(FFA).Accordingly the region related to face recognition in the occipital cortex is named as the occipital face area(OFA).With the development of diffusion tensor imaging(DTI)technology,these studies about brain structural connection found that the amygdala and anterior temporal lobe were also associate with face recognition.Specially,the face-selective processing in the temporal lobe may rely on input from the amygdala.In addition,The majority of research on face processing has used a group-mean approach that averages behavioral or neural responses to faces across individuals and treats variance between individuals as noise.However,the variance is exist actually,individual differences in face processing can provide valuable information that complements and extends findings from group-mean studies.In this paper,we mainly study the correlation between the behavioral test scores and brain structural parameters.The specific process of this paper was as follows:First,we acquired the brain images from one hundred and forty-nine healthy individuals.After that,those images were preprocessed by FSL(functional magnetic resonance imaging brain software library)to prepare for the subsequent data processing.Then,this paper was divided into three parts to analyze the correlation between the ability of face recognition and brain structural parameters.(1)The structural diffusion parameter(fractional anisotropy,FA)of the whole brain was extracted with the tract-based spatial statistics(TBSS).Combined with face recognition test results,we studied the correlation between the accuracy of face recognition and FA.(2)The ipsilaterally structural connectivity between the regions of interest(ROIs)was obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging brain’s diffusion toolbox(FDT),the relationship between the connectivity and composite face effect scores was studied.(3)The structural connectivity between the ROI and the rest of the brain was also obtained.We transferred the results to the weighted global brain connectivity(WGBC)parameters.the scores of whole-part effect and the weighted global brain connectivity(WGBC)were analyzed.We studied the relationship between the behavioral test scores and brain structural parameters through three different ways.Finally,we found that there was a relationship between brain structural parameters and individual differences in face recognition.And the results verified that FFA and OFA were not only related to face recognition functionally,but also related to face recognition structurally.The results of the three studies reflected that the left middle temporal gyrus,left amygdala and left temporal pole were associated with face recognition,and there might be a distributed brain network related to face processing.Our results were consistent with the functional brain research to some extent.In addition,the limitations of this study and the future direction of the study were summarized based on the current researches.In this study,we analyzed the relationship between the structural parameter(FA)of the whole brain and the ability of face recognition,and the structural connectivity results provided a scientific basis for the individual differences of face recognition.