Brain areas underlying visual mental imagery and visual perception: an fMRI study

• Published in: Brain research. Cognitive brain research Vol. 20; no. 2; pp. 226 - 241
• Main Authors: Ganis, Giorgio, Thompson, William L, Kosslyn, Stephen M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01-07-2004; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Adult; Anatomical correlates of behavior; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Cerebellum - physiology; Cerebral Cortex - physiology; Cognition - physiology; Cognition. Intelligence; Cognitive control processes; Cognitive neuroscience; Female; fMRI; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Imagination - physiology; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Mental imagery. Mental representation; Parietal Lobe - physiology; Prefrontal Cortex - physiology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Temporal Lobe - physiology; Thalamic Nuclei - physiology; Visual cognition; Visual Cortex - physiology; Visual imagery; Visual Perception - physiology; Visual cognition; fMRI; Visual imagery; Cognitive control processes; Neural Basis of Behavior; Cognitive neuroscience; Human; Mental imagery; Topography; Vision; Central nervous system; Perception; Cognition; Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging; Cognitive control; Encephalon; Functional imaging
• ISSN: 0926-6410
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2004.02.012

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess the maximal degree of shared neural processing in visual mental imagery and visual perception. Participants either visualized or saw faint drawings of simple objects, and then judged specific aspects of the drawings (which could only be evaluated properly if they used the correct stimulus). The results document that visual imagery and visual perception draw on most of the same neural machinery. However, although the vast majority of activated voxels were activated during both conditions, the spatial overlap was neither complete nor uniform; the overlap was much more pronounced in frontal and parietal regions than in temporal and occipital regions. This finding may indicate that cognitive control processes function comparably in both imagery and perception, whereas at least some sensory processes may be engaged differently by visual imagery and perception.