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Chesley, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Chesley, J..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Natural body-selective motion processing in humans: Evidence from event-related potentials

As social species, perception of body motion is crucial to daily interactions, yet the underlying neural processes and their dynamics are not fully understood. While well-established EEG evidence has identified temporal markers of biological body motion, and recent fMRI research points to naturalistic body networks, the temporal markers of higher-level, naturalistic body motion processes remain unknown. The present study bridges this gap, showing that at the stage of P2, the cortex may already distinguish between the global motion of naturalistic bodies compared to objects. Exploratory analyses point to a similar body-specific modulation across stimulus species, namely human and monkey. The findings of the present study expand our understanding of body motion processes, in line with emerging, integrative models of multi-faceted body processes.

neuroscience↗

Theta activity discriminates high-level, species-specific body processes

Among social stimuli that trigger rapid reactions, body images occupy a prominent place. Given that bodies carry information about other agents intentions, actions and emotional expressions, a foundational question concerns the neural basis of body processing. Previous fMRI studies have investigated this but were not yet able to clarify the time course and its functional significance. The present EEG study investigated the role of slow oscillatory cortical activity in body processing and species-specificity. Human participants viewed naturalistic images of human and monkey bodies, faces, and objects, along with mosaic-scrambled versions to control for low-level visual features. Analysis of event-related theta power (4 - 7 Hz) combined with data-driven methods revealed a strong, body-evoked neural response that is specific to human bodies and likely originates from a widespread cortical region during a time window of 150 - 550 ms after the onset of the body image. Our results corroborate recent research proposing a widespread, species-specific cortical network of human body processing. We submit that this network may play an essential role in linking body processes to movement intentions.

neuroscience↗