A central concern in the study of learning and decision-making is the identification of neural signals associated with the values of choice alternatives. An important factor in understanding the neural correlates of value is the representation of the object itself, separate from the act of choosing. Is it the case that the representation of an object within visual areas will change if it is associated with a particular value? We used fMRI adaptation to measure the neural similarity of a set of novel objects before and after participants learned to associate monetary values with the objects. We used a range of both positive and negative values to allow us to distinguish effects of behavioral salience (i.e., large vs. small values) from effects of valence (i.e., positive vs. negative values). During the scanning session, participants made a perceptual judgment unrelated to value. Crucially, the similarity of the visual features of any pair of objects did not predict the similarity of their value, so we could distinguish adaptation effects due to each dimension of similarity. Within early visual areas, we found that value similarity modulated the neural response to the objects after training. These results show that an abstract dimension, in this case, monetary value, modulates neural response to an object in visual areas of the brain even when attention is diverted.

Although lesions of the striate (V1) cortex disrupt conscious vision, patients can demonstrate surprising residual abilities within their affected visual field, a phenomenon termed blindsight. The relative contribution of spared “islands” of functioning striate cortex to residual vision, versus subcortical pathways to extrastriate areas, has implications for the role of early visual areas in visual awareness and performance. Here we describe the behavioral and neural features of residual cortical function in Patient M.C., who sustained a posterior cerebral artery stroke at the age of 15 years. Within her impaired visual field, we found preserved visual abilities characteristic of blindsight, including superior detection of motion, and above-chance discrimination of shape, color, and motion direction. Functional magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated a retinotopically organized representation of M.C.'s blind visual field within the lesioned occipital lobe, specifically within area V1. The incongruity of a well-organized cortex and M.C.'s markedly impaired vision was resolved by measurement of functional responses within her damaged occipital lobe. Attenuated neural contrast-response functions were found to correlate with M.C.'s impaired psychophysical performance. These results demonstrate that the behavioral features of blindsight may arise in the presence of residual striate responses that are spatially organized and sensitive to contrast variation.

Lesion and neuroimaging studies suggest the amygdala is important in the perception and production of negative emotion; however, the effects of emotion regulation on the amygdalar response to negative stimuli remain unknown. Using event-related fMRI, we tested the hypothesis that voluntary modulation of negative emotion is associated with changes in neural activity within the amygdala. Negative and neutral pictures were presented with instructions to either “maintain” the emotional response or “passively view” the picture without regulating the emotion. Each picture presentation was followed by a delay, after which subjects indicated how they currently felt via a response keypad. Consistent with previous reports, greater signal change was observed in the amygdala during the presentation of negative compared to neutral pictures. No significant effect of instruction was found during the picture presentation component of the trial. However, a prolonged increase in signal change was observed in the amygdala when subjects maintained the negative emotional response during the delay following negative picture offset. This increase in amygdalar signal due to the active maintenance of negative emotion was significantly correlated with subjects' self-reported dispositional levels of negative affect. These results suggest that consciously evoked cognitive mechanisms that alter the emotional response of the subject operate, at least in part, by altering the degree of neural activity within the amygdala.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to estimate neural activity while subjects viewed strings of consonants, digits, and shapes. An area on or near the left fusiform gyrus was found that responded significantly more to letters than digits. Similar results were obtained when consonants were used whose visual features were matched with the digits and when an active matching task was used, suggesting that the results cannot be easily attributed to artifacts of the stimuli or task. These results demonstrate that neural specialization in the human brain can extend to a category of stimuli that is culturally defined and that is acquired many years postnatally.