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Abstract

By means of ultrahigh field 9.4 T MRI, we conducted whole-brain fMRI in healthy volunteers during performance of a 2AFC task with upright and inverted biological motion (BM). Neither with upright nor inverted orientations single components of point-light BM trigger body recognition. We revealed differences in the brain circuits underpinning upright and inverted BM processing, which may be summarized in terms of hemispheric laterality and antero-posterior brain axis: inverted BM activates left anterior networks engaged in decision making, whereas readily recognizable upright BM activates solely right posterior areas. In addition, we implemented several strategies for uncovering ensembles of regions playing in unison such as temporal contrasts analysis and independent component analysis. For the first time, we uncovered distributed ensembles of regions playing in unison. The outcome provides novel insights on the networks underlying BM processing as an essential part of the social brain.