Animal category-preferential gamma-band responses in the lower- and higher-order visual areas: Intracranial recording in children

•Animals, compared to non-animal objects, elicited greater occipital gamma-augmentation.•Occipital poles began to show such animal-preferential gamma-augmentation at 140 ms.•Animal-preferential gamma-augmentation also involved the left inferior frontal gyrus.

ObjectiveWe determined where and when category-preferential augmentation of gamma activity took place during naming of animal or non-animal pictures.MethodsWe studied 41 patients with focal epilepsy who underwent measurement of naming-related gamma-augmentation at 50–120 Hz during extraoperative electrocorticography. The assigned task consisted of naming of a visually-presented object classified as either ‘animal’ or ‘non-animal’.ResultsWithin 80 ms following the onset of picture presentation, regardless of stimulus type, gamma-activity in bilateral occipital regions began to be augmented compared to the resting period. Initially in the occipital poles (at 140 ms and after) and subsequently in the lateral, inferior and medial occipital regions (at 320 ms and after), the degree of gamma-augmentation elicited by ‘animal naming’ became larger (by up to 52%) than that by ‘non-animal naming’. Immediately prior to the overt response, left inferior frontal gamma-augmentation became modestly larger during ‘animal naming’ compared to ‘non-animal naming’.ConclusionsAnimal category-preferential gamma-augmentation sequentially involved the lower- and higher-order visual areas. Relatively larger occipital gamma-augmentation during ‘animal naming’ can be attributed to the more attentive analysis of animal stimuli including the face. Animal-preferential gamma-augmentation in the left inferior frontal region could be attributed to a need for selective semantic retrieval during ‘animal naming’.SignificanceA specific program of cortical processing to distinguish an animal (or face) from other objects might be initiated in the lower-order visual cortex.