Three distinct profiles of visual category preference within the anterior temporal lobe

Abstract

The primate visual hierarchy culminates in the anterior temporal lobe (ATL), yet the functional organization of this region remains poorly understood due to magnetic susceptibility artifacts that degrade fMRI signal quality. Here, we leverage a large-scale fMRI dataset from the Human Connectome Project (N = 830, male and female) to characterize visual category preferences within the ATL using a region-of-interest-based approach providing sensitivity in signal-compromised areas. Within the temporal pole (TP) and perirhinal cortex (PR), we identified three distinct profiles of visual category response, each replicated in an independent sample. TP showed a preference for objects over scenes, with a right-hemisphere bias toward animate objects (faces and bodies) over inanimate objects (tools). PR contained two functionally distinct subregions: one preferring faces over other categories, and one responding broadly to objects -- particularly tools and bodies--over scenes. Analysis of spatial location revealed that, unlike the well-characterized topographic organization of category-sensitive regions in posterior occipitotemporal cortex, face- and object-preferring subregions of PR did not show a consistent spatial relationship, suggesting a patchy or "salt-and-pepper" organization. Resting-state functional connectivity analyses demonstrated that ATL subregions have dissociable connectivity profiles: TP showed preferential connectivity with transmodal default mode network regions, while PR subregions were more strongly coupled with occipitotemporal cortex, with each showing preferential connectivity with regions sharing similar category preferences. Together, these findings demonstrate that category sensitivity--a hallmark of the ventral visual stream--extends to the apex of the cortical visual hierarchy. Significance statementUnderstanding the functional organization of the visual system is a central goal of cognitive and systems neuroscience. The anterior temporal lobe (ATL) sits at the top of the brains visual processing hierarchy and is critical for recognizing objects and people, but its internal organization has remained poorly characterized due to technical limitations in brain imaging. Our findings resolve a key gap by demonstrating that the same organizational principle governing the well-studied posterior visual system--the segregation of responses by object category--extends all the way to the apex of the visual hierarchy. This lays essential groundwork for future research understanding interactions between visual and memory systems, and how high-level visual processing breaks down in neurological conditions affecting the ATL.