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Abstract #1698

Human MT Complex: Selectivity to Motion Flow Stimuli and to Retinotopic and Spatiotopic Input

Laura Biagi1, Sofia Crespi2,3, Giovanni D'Avossa4, Maria Concetta Morrone1,5, Michela Tosetti1

1Stella Maris Scientific Institute, Pisa, Italy; 2Universit degli Studi Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy; 3Universit Vita Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy; 4Bangor University, Bangor, Wales, UK; 5Universit degli Studi di Pisa, Pisa, Italy


A recent fMRI study demonstrated the existence of a region within MT complex with a spatiotopic selectivity. However this contrasts with other results that showed that MT represents the stimuli manly in retinotopic coordinate with a small or absent gaze modulation. The aim of this work is to understand whether the portion in MT complex that shows spatiotopic properties does belong to the retinotopic portion of MT and its specificity to the flow motion. Different kinds of visual stimuli (retinotopy, motion localizers and spatiotopic selectivity) were used to test this hypothesis. The region showing a spatiotopic selectivity is partially overlapping with the classical MT region and is strongly activated by all types of flow motion.