Transient activity in the human calcarine cortex during visual–mental imagery: an event-related fMRI study
Open accessAbstract
Although it is largely accepted that visual-mental imagery and perception draw on many of the same neural structures, the existence and nature of neural processing in the primary visual cortex (or area V1) during visual imagery remains controversial. We tested two general hypotheses: The first was that V1 is activated only when images with many details are formed and used, and the second was that V1 is activated whenever images are formed, even if they are not necessarily used to perform a task. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (ER-fMRI) to detect and characterize the activity in the calcarine sulcus (which contains the primary visual cortex) during single instances of mental imagery. The results revealed reproducible transient activity in this area whenever participants generated or evaluated a mental image. This transient activity was strongly enhanced when participants evaluated characteristics of objects, whether or not details actually needed to be extracted from the image to perform the task. These results show that visual imagery processing commonly involves the earliest stages of the visual system.
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Early visual cortices are activated during visual imagery in the absence of visual stimulation, with this early sensory activation sustained by recurrent interactions with higher-level processing areas.
“Models of visual processing provide a useful analogy here because it has been shown that early visual cortices (e.g. the calcarine cortex and the lateral occipital cortex) are activated during visual imagery in the absence of visual stimulation (Klein et al., 2000; Lambert et al., 2002; Stokes et al., 2009, 2011) with this early sensory activation sustained by recurrent interactions with higher”
From A review and synthesis of the first 20years of PET and fMRI studies of heard speech, spoken language and reading (2012) · cites this paper as Klein et al., 2000
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- Authors
- Klein, I., Paradis, A.-L., Poline, J.-B., Kosslyn, S. M., & Le Bihan, D.
- Affiliations
- Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (FR)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Harvard University (US)
- SHFJ/DRM/DSV/CEA, Orsay, France
- Venue
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
- Publisher
- MIT Press - Journals
- Published
- 2000-11-01
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- Supplement 2
- Pages
- 15-23
- ISSN
- 0898-929X (ISSN-L)
- 1530-8898
- OpenAlex
- W2052927305
- Cited by
- 175
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 3.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- nrs.harvard.edu
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Keywords
- visual imagery, primary visual cortex, calcarine sulcus, event-related fMRI, image evaluation, image generation, visual perception, early visual processing
- MeSH terms
- Acoustic Stimulation, Adult, Animals, Brain Mapping, Cats, Female, Humans, Imagination, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Mental Processes, Occipital Lobe, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Reaction Time, Visual Cortex
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