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Abstract
The broader maps of brain activation provided by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) could help guide the more-precise single-cell recording techniques. By showing monkeys a series of cartoon faces with various details such as hair, a nose or irises missing, they could determine which cells fire in response to specific facial features. When they showed monkeys real faces that were looking in different directions, the researchers discovered that cells in the patches closest to the visual cortex tended to fire in response to specific orientations of any face, whereas those in the deepest patch responded to a few individual faces, no matter what their orientations. When researchers put together the neural activity about face shape and appearance from just 205 neurons, they could predict the features of a face the monkey was looking at.