fusiform gyrus

fusiform gyrus
Name	Fusiform gyrus
Latin	gyrus fusiformis
System	Nervous system
Artery	Posterior cerebral artery
Vein	Basal vein
Nerve	Inferior longitudinal fasciculus

fusiform gyrus The fusiform gyrus is a cortical structure on the ventral surface of the temporal lobe involved in high-level visual processing and recognition. Located between the parahippocampal gyrus and the inferior temporal gyrus, it contributes to face, object, and word form perception and interacts with medial temporal and occipital regions. Investigations of the structure have engaged researchers and institutions worldwide, including teams associated with Harvard University, Stanford University, Massachusetts General Hospital, and University College London.

Anatomy

The fusiform gyrus occupies the basal lateral surface of the temporal lobe bounded medially by the collateral sulcus and laterally by the occipitotemporal sulcus, receiving vascular supply from branches of the Posterior cerebral artery, and venous drainage toward the Basal vein of Rosenthal. Anatomical descriptions reference landmark studies performed at Johns Hopkins Hospital and dissections curated by collections at the Smithsonian Institution and the British Museum that informed atlases produced at Oxford University Press. The gyrus is typically subdivided into lateral and medial portions and contains cytoarchitectonic fields mapped in classical work from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and modern parcellations from teams at the Max Planck Society.

Function

The fusiform gyrus supports specialized perceptual tasks such as face recognition, visual word form processing, and object categorization, functions investigated in cognitive neuroscience laboratories at MIT, Columbia University, Caltech, and Yale University. Electrophysiological and lesion studies linking the fusiform region to prosopagnosia were reported by researchers affiliated with Harvard Medical School, UCLA, University of Pennsylvania, and Karolinska Institutet. Functional studies using paradigms developed in collaboration with groups at University of Cambridge, McGill University, University of Toronto, and University of Oxford demonstrate category-selective responses that interact with language networks noted in work associated with Salk Institute, Rutgers University, and Duke University.

Development and Connectivity

Developmental trajectories of the fusiform gyrus have been charted in longitudinal cohorts coordinated by centers such as Children's Hospital Boston, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Seattle Children's Hospital, and Kaiser Permanente research divisions, with neurodevelopmental models proposed in collaboration with National Institutes of Health investigators. White matter connectivity includes projections via the inferior longitudinal fasciculus and the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus identified in diffusion imaging studies from teams at ETH Zurich, University of Zurich, University of Barcelona, and University of Melbourne. Genetic and molecular contributors to its maturation have been examined in projects involving researchers at Broad Institute, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and European Molecular Biology Laboratory.

Clinical Significance

Clinical relevance spans acquired deficits such as acquired prosopagnosia reported in case series from Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Karolinska University Hospital and developmental conditions including dyslexia studied at University College London, Columbia University Medical Center, and University of Edinburgh. Surgical considerations for lesions in the fusiform region arise in reports from neurosurgical teams at Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and University of Tokyo with outcomes discussed in conferences at American Association of Neurological Surgeons and Congress of Neurological Surgeons. Neuropsychiatric associations have been explored by groups at National Institute of Mental Health, Stanford Medicine, Yale-New Haven Hospital, and NIHR-funded centers.

Neuroimaging Findings

Functional MRI, PET, and intracranial EEG studies converge on reproducible activation patterns in the fusiform region during face, word, and object tasks reported by imaging consortia including the Human Connectome Project, ENIGMA Consortium, ADNI, and multicenter studies coordinated by European Research Council grants. Landmark imaging investigations were published by investigators from University of California, San Diego, Imperial College London, Seoul National University, and Peking University using tasks validated in work with collaborators at Yale, Columbia, and Northwestern University. Meta-analyses aggregating voxel-wise data were led by teams at University of Amsterdam, Karolinska Institutet, and McMaster University.

Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives

Comparative studies of fusiform-like ventral temporal cortex in nonhuman primates and other mammals have been performed by laboratories at Primate Research Center, Kyoto University, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, RIKEN, and Duke University Primate Center, informing hypotheses about the evolution of face processing networks discussed at meetings of the Society for Neuroscience and published in journals with contributions from University of Chicago, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Wisconsin–Madison. Evolutionary genomics work implicating regulatory changes in cortex that could affect ventral temporal development has been conducted at Broad Institute, Sanger Institute, and Harvard Medical School, and paleoneurological perspectives appear in syntheses from Natural History Museum, London and American Museum of Natural History.

Category:Neuroanatomy