Cortical brain regions associated with color processing: An FMRI study
To clarify whether the neural pathways concerning color processing are the same for natural
objects, for artifacts objects and for non-sense objects we examined functional magnetic
resonance imaging (FMRI) responses during a covert naming task including the factors color
(color vs. black&white (B&W)) and stimulus type (natural vs. artifacts vs. non-sense objects).
Our results indicate that the superior parietal lobule and precuneus (BA 7) bilaterally, the
right hippocampus and the right fusifom gyrus (V4) make part of a network responsible for
color processing both for natural and artifacts objects, but not for non-sense objects. The
recognition of non-sense colored objects compared to the recognition of color objects
activated the posterior cingulate/precuneus (BA 7/23/31), suggesting that color attribute
induces the mental operation of trying to associate a non-sense composition with a familiar
objects. When color objects (both natural and artifacts) were contrasted with color nonobjects
we observed activations in the right parahippocampal gyrus (BA 35/36), the superior
parietal lobule (BA 7) bilaterally, the left inferior middle temporal region (BA 20/21) and the
inferior and superior frontal regions (BA 10/11/47). These additional activations suggest that
colored objects recruit brain regions that are related to visual semantic information/retrieval
and brain regions related to visuo-spatial processing. Overall, the results suggest that color
information is an attribute that improve object recognition (based on behavioral results) and
activate a specific neural network related to visual semantic information that is more
extensive than for B&W objects during object recognition
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