The overlap of the EBA and the MT/V5 cluster.

The extrastriate body area (EBA) is located in the lateral occipito-temporal cortex, in the vicinity of the motion-sensitive region hMT/V5+. To investigate the relationship of EBA to the recently mapped retinotopic areas of the MT/V5 cluster (Kolster et al., 2010), we evaluated the proportion of voxels responsive to the presentation of static human bodies (EBA voxels) in each of the four areas of the MT/V5 cluster and neighboring LO and phPIT areas. We evaluated this proportion as both a function of the number of voxels in a given area and the total number of voxels in a broader lateral occipito-temporal cortex (LOTC) ROI. We observed that each of the four retinotopic areas of the MT/V5 cluster includes substantial fractions of EBA voxels, in contrast to the LO and phPIT areas. This proportion was slightly greater in the right than left hemisphere, and did not depend on the control condition. While most EBA voxels in MT/V5 were only body-sensitive, those in pMSTv and pFST were also motion-sensitive. The main locus of EBA voxels outside the MT/V5 cluster was in the LOTC cortex just rostral to the MT/V5 cluster. Although this region contained more EBA voxels than the MT/V5 cluster, the proportion as a function of areal size was much reduced compared to the MT/V5 cluster. Our results show that EBA is not a single cortical area as EBA voxels are located in all four areas of the MT/V5 cluster, and that body-sensitivity is a key feature of the MT/V5 cluster, in keeping with its exquisite sensitivity to observed actions of others.
(Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)