The DOI matches its Crossref record; 48 of the 49 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Divide and conquer: A defense of functional localizers
Abstract
Numerous functionally distinct regions of cortex (e.g., V1, MT, the fusiform face area) can be easily identified in any normal human subject in just a few minutes of fMRI scanning. However, the locations of these regions vary across subjects. Investigations of these regions have therefore often used a functional region of interest (fROI) approach in which the region is first identified functionally in each subject individually, before subsequent scans in the same subjects test specific hypotheses concerning that region. This fROI method, which resembled long-established practice in visual neurophysiology, has methodological, statistical, and theoretical advantages over standard alternatives (such as whole-brain analyses of group data): (i) because functional properties are more consistently and robustly associated with fROIs than with locations in stereotaxic space, functional hypotheses concerning fROIs are often the most straightforward to frame, motivate, and test, (ii) because hypotheses are tested in only a handful of fROIs (instead of in tens of thousands of voxels), advance specification of fROIs provides a massive increase in statistical power over whole-brain analyses, and (iii) some fROIs may serve as candidate distinct components of the mind/brain worth investigation as such. Of course fROIs can be productively used in conjunction with other complementary methods. Here, we explain the motivation for and advantages of the fROI approach, and we rebut the criticism of this method offered by Friston et al. (Friston, K., Rotshtein, P., Geng, J., Sterzer, P., Henson, R., in press. A critique of functional localizers. NeuroImage).
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“In addition, because of a constrained search volume, fROI analyses typically have higher statistical power than whole-brain analyses (Fedorenko, Hsieh, Nieto-Castañón, Whitfield-Gabrieli, & Kanwisher, 2010;Saxe, Brett, & Kanwisher, 2006).”
From Functional Specificity and Sex Differences in the Neural Circuits Supporting the Inhibition of Automatic Imitation (2018) · cites this paper as Saxe, Brett, & Kanwisher, 2006
In the citing paper
“Definitively addressing the question of neural overlap between linguistic and nonlinguistic functions requires examining overlap within individual subjects (27, 28), a data analysis strategy that has almost never been applied in neuroimaging investigations of high-level linguistic processing.”
From Functional specificity for high-level linguistic processing in the human brain (2011) · cites this paper as [28]
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Self-citationCo-planar stereotaxic atlas of the human brain
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Distributed and overlapping representations of faces and objects in ventral temporal cortex
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Functional analysis of human MT and related visual cortical areas using magnetic resonance imaging
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Circular analysis in systems neuroscience: the dangers of double dipping
Kriegeskorte, N., Simmons, W. K., Bellgowan, P. S. F., & Baker, C. I. (2009) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nn.2303 · Cited by 2,696
The preregistration revolution
Nosek, B. A., Ebersole, C. R., DeHaven, A. C., & Mellor, D. T. (2018) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1708274114 · Cited by 1,998
The fusiform face area: a cortical region specialized for the perception of faces
Kanwisher, N., & Yovel, G. (2006) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.1934 · Cited by 1,718
Self-citationPuzzlingly High Correlations in fMRI Studies of Emotion, Personality, and Social Cognition
Vul, E., Harris, C., Winkielman, P., & Pashler, H. (2009) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01125.x · Cited by 1,475
Visual field maps in human cortex.
Wandell, B. A., Dumoulin, S. O., & Brewer, A. A. (2007) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2007.10.012 · Cited by 1,231
Metadata
- Authors
- Saxe, R., Brett, M., & Kanwisher, N.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (GB)
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research (US)
- Corresponding author
- Saxe, Rebecca
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2006-05
- Volume
- 30
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1088-1096
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2084332617
- Cited by
- 544
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 26 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 50 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 24 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 33 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 22 · 2012: 38
- FWCI
- 13.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications
- Keywords
- functional localizer, statistical power, whole-brain analysis, stereotaxic space, visual cortex, fusiform face area, motion processing
- MeSH terms
- Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Dominance, Cerebral, Fourier Analysis, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Mathematical Computing, Sensitivity and Specificity, Radiosurgery, Mind-Body Relations, Metaphysical, Surgery, Computer-Assisted
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