AI Insight
Researchers mapped metabolic activity in macaque visual cortex using cytochrome oxidase histology and found it closely corresponds to how the brain organizes visual information based on distance from the center of gaze. Face-processing regions biased toward central vision showed higher metabolic activity than scene-processing regions biased toward peripheral vision, with metabolic intensity varying systematically across the visual field map. This pattern suggests the brain allocates metabolic resources based on both the topographic organization of visual space and the computational demands of processing behaviorally important visual categories like faces.
Why it matters
This research reveals fundamental principles of how the brain efficiently distributes energy resources to match processing demands, which could inform understanding of metabolic dysfunction in visual disorders and guide the development of more efficient artificial vision systems based on biological principles.
by Hiroki Oishi, Vladimir K. Berezovskii, Margaret S. Livingstone, Kevin S. Weiner, Michael J. Arcaro
Neural activity depends on energy metabolism, yet the extent to which regional variation in cortical metabolic architecture reflects the functional and perceptual demands of visual processing remains unclear. In the primate visual system, retinotopic eccentricity, the topographic mapping of visual space relative to gaze, provides a large-scale organizational axis along which spatial resolution and selectivity for behaviorally relevant visual categories vary systematically. Here, we tested whether cortical metabolic architecture reflects this axis by aligning in vivo fMRI maps of eccentricity and visual category selectivity with ex vivo cytochrome oxidase (CO) histology, a marker of oxidative metabolism, in macaque visual cortex. We found that the middle lateral (ML) face-selective region, which is biased toward central vision, exhibited higher CO intensity than the lateral place patch (LPP), a scene-selective region biased toward peripheral vision. More broadly, CO intensity covaried with eccentricity within both ML and LPP and across occipitotemporal visual cortex, though eccentricity only partially accounted for the elevated CO in ML. These findings reveal a close correspondence between cortical metabolic architecture and retinotopic organization, suggesting that the distribution of cortical metabolic resources is shaped by both visual field organization and the processing demands of perceptual specialization.