We used 7T BOLD functional imaging to acquire 0.7mm voxels and the thermal noise suppression technique NORDIC to evaluate depth-dependent, task related top-down modulations. Four participants viewed face stimuli and performed either a face or fixation task (identical stimuli). We compared depth-dependent task modulations in the primary visual cortex (V1) and fusiform face area (FFA). We found that, relative to the fixation task, face detection led to larger modulations in outer relative to inner layers in the FFA, and the inverse pattern in V1. This is a critical step towards using laminar analyses to examine hierarchical or distributed cognitive processes.
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