Contralateral monocular dominance in anterior viual cortex confirmed by functional magnetic reonance imaging

PURPOE: Although it i known that the damage to anterior triate cortex reult in temporal peripheral viual field lo of the contralateral eye in patient with cerebral viual diturbance, the monocularity of anterior triate cortex ha not been demontrated in normal living human. The aim of thi tudy wa to invetigate whether thi could be hown noninvaively uing functional magnetic reonance imaging of the human viual cortex. METHOD: Eleven normal volunteer were tudied with functional magnetic reonance imaging during alternating monocular viual timulation uing a 1.5 Tela canner. The data were motion corrected and patially normalized to the tandard brain. The monocular activation of the viual cortex wa compared with the activation by the other eye. REULT: In the individual data analyi, contralateral eye dominance wa alway oberved in the anterior triate cortex. In the group analyi from 11 ubject, the area with contralateral eye dominance wa found in the mot anterior part of primary viual cortex where the calcarine fiure merged with the parieto-occipital ulcu. CONCLUION: Thi tudy how that the contralateral eye dominance of anterior triate cortex can be detected noninvaively with functional magnetic reonance imaging during monocular viual timulation. The finding confirm that the anterior triate cortex, where the monocular temporal crecent i repreented, i primarily monocular, but the fact that greatet denity of retinal ganglion cell and photoreceptor i in the naal hemiretina mut alo be taken into account when interpreting thee reult.