The position and topography of the human colour centre as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging.

We used a colour Mondrian--an abstract scene with no recognizable objects--and its achromatic version to image the change in blood oxygenation in the brains of 12 human subjects, with the aim of learning more about the position and variability of the colour centre in the human brain. The results showed a consistent association of colour stimulation with activation of an area that is distinct from the primary visual areas, and lies in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex; we refer to it as human V4. The position of human V4, as defined on functional grounds, varies between individuals in absolute terms but is invariably found on the lateral aspect of the collateral sulcus on the fusiform gyrus. There was no indication of lingual gyral activation. In further studies designed to reveal the topographic map within V4, we stimulated the superior and inferior visual fields separately, using the same stimuli. We found that human V4 contains a representation of both the superior and inferior visual fields. In addition, there appears to be retinotopic organization of V4 with the superior visual field being represented more medially on the fusiform gyrus and the inferior field more laterally, the two areas abutting on one another. We find no evidence that suggests the existence of a separate representation of the inferior hemifield for colour in more dorsolateral regions of the occipital lobe.

[1]  G. Holmes.  Ferrier Lecture - The organization of the visual cortex in man , 1945, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B - Biological Sciences.

[2]  S. Zeki,et al.  Colour coding in rhesus monkey prestriate cortex. , 1973, Brain research.

[3]  J. C. Meadows.  Disturbed perception of colours associated with localized cerebral lesions. , 1974, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[4]  S. Zeki,et al.  Combined anatomical and electrophysiological studies on the boundary between the second and third visual areas of rhesus monkey cortex , 1976, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences.

[5]  S. Zeki,et al.  Colour coding in the superior temporal sulcus of rhesus monkey visual cortex , 1977, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences.

[6]  S. Zeki.  Functional specialisation in the visual cortex of the rhesus monkey , 1978, Nature.

[7]  S. Zeki.  The representation of colours in the cerebral cortex , 1980, Nature.

[8]  S. Zeki.  Colour coding in the cerebral cortex: The reaction of cells in monkey visual cortex to wavelengths and colours , 1983, Neuroscience.

[9]  J. Kulikowski,et al.  Primate cortical area V4 important for colour constancy but not wavelength discrimination , 1985, Nature.

[10]  R. Vautin,et al.  Color cell groups in foveal striate cortex of the behaving macaque. , 1985, Journal of neurophysiology.

[11]  A. Cowey,et al.  On the role of cortical area V4 in the discrimination of hue and pattern in macaque monkeys , 1987, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[12]  C. Gross,et al.  Visuotopic organization and extent of V3 and V4 of the macaque , 1988, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[13]  J. Talairach,et al.  Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain: 3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging , 1988 .

[14]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  The colour centre in the cerebral cortex of man , 1989, Nature.

[15]  J. Kulikowski,et al.  Wavelength discrimination at detection threshold. , 1990, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[16]  Robert M. Boynton,et al.  Salience of chromatic basic color terms confirmed by three measures , 1990, Vision Research.

[17]  S. Zeki,et al.  A century of cerebral achromatopsia. , 1990, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[18]  G. Bruyn.  Atlas of the Cerebral Sulci, M. Ono, S. Kubik, Chad D. Abernathey (Eds.). Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart, New York (1990), 232, DM 298 , 1990 .

[19]  S. Clarke,et al.  Occipital cortex in man: Organization of callosal connections, related myelo‐ and cytoarchitecture, and putative boundaries of functional visual areas , 1990, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[20]  F. Newcombe,et al.  Chromatic Discrimination in a Cortically Colour Blind Observer , 1991, The European journal of neuroscience.

[21]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  A direct demonstration of functional specialization in human visual cortex , 1991, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[22]  M. Corbetta,et al.  Selective and divided attention during visual discriminations of shape, color, and speed: functional anatomy by positron emission tomography , 1991, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[23]  J. Horton,et al.  The representation of the visual field in human striate cortex. A revision of the classic Holmes map. , 1991, Archives of ophthalmology.

[24]  A. Cowey,et al.  Cortical area V4 and its role in the perception of color , 1992, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[25]  T. Allison,et al.  Electrophysiological studies of color processing in human visual cortex. , 1993, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[26]  S. R. Butler,et al.  The effects of V4 lesions on the visual abilities of macaques: hue discrimination and colour constancy , 1993, Behavioural Brain Research.

[27]  Richard S. J. Frackowiak,et al.  Area V5 of the human brain: evidence from a combined study using positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. , 1993, Cerebral cortex.

[28]  J J Kulikowski,et al.  Colour vision: isolating mechanisms in overlapping streams. , 1993, Progress in brain research.

[29]  Human V4? , 1993, Current Biology.

[30]  S. R. Butler,et al.  The electrophysiological basis of colour processing in macaques with V4 lesions , 1994, Behavioural Brain Research.

[31]  F. Newcombe,et al.  On the role of parvocellular (P) and magnocellular (M) pathways in cerebral achromatopsia. , 1994, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[32]  L M Vaina,et al.  Functional segregation of color and motion processing in the human visual cortex: clinical evidence. , 1994, Cerebral cortex.

[33]  Martha J. Farah,et al.  The Neuropsychology of high-level vision : collected tutorial essays , 1994 .

[34]  Leslie G. Ungerleider,et al.  Discrete Cortical Regions Associated with Knowledge of Color and Knowledge of Action , 1995, Science.

[35]  J W Belliveau,et al.  Borders of multiple visual areas in humans revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging. , 1995, Science.

[36]  A. Cowey,et al.  There's more to colour than meets the eye , 1995, Behavioural Brain Research.

[37]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Spatial registration and normalization of images , 1995 .

[38]  H Koizumi,et al.  Functional mapping of the human colour centre with echo-planar magnetic resonance imaging , 1995, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[39]  A. Cowey,et al.  Cerebral Achromatopsia in Monkeys , 1995, The European journal of neuroscience.

[40]  K H Ruddock,et al.  Colour identification and colour constancy are impaired in a patient with incomplete achromatopsia associated with prestriate cortical lesions , 1995, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.