Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34907323›Full record

ArticleCommunications biology2021

Encoding of facial features by single neurons in the human amygdala and hippocampus.

Runnan Cao, Xin Li, Nicholas J Brandmeir, Shuo Wang

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Communications biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
33citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Article
  3. Spaces and sequences in the hippocampus: a homological perspective.Journal of computational neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. A Multidimensional Neural Representation of Face Impressions.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024
    Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Face detection mechanisms: NatureFrontiers in neuroscience · 2024
    Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Runnan CaoLane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26506, USA. runnan.cao@mail.wvu.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5827-9903
Xin LiLane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26506, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2067-2763
Nicholas J BrandmeirDepartment of Neurosurgery, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26506, USA.
Shuo WangLane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26506, USA. shuowang@wustl.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2562-0225

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Faces are salient social stimuli that attract a stereotypical pattern of eye movement. The human amygdala and hippocampus are involved in various aspects of face processing; however, it remains unclear how they encode the content of fixations when viewing faces. To answer this question, we employed single-neuron recordings with simultaneous eye tracking when participants viewed natural face stimuli. We found a class of neurons in the human amygdala and hippocampus that encoded salient facial features such as the eyes and mouth. With a control experiment using non-face stimuli, we further showed that feature selectivity was specific to faces. We also found another population of neurons that differentiated saccades to the eyes vs. the mouth. Population decoding confirmed our results and further revealed the temporal dynamics of face feature coding. Interestingly, we found that the amygdala and hippocampus played different roles in encoding facial features. Lastly, we revealed two functional roles of feature-selective neurons: 1) they encoded the salient region for face recognition, and 2) they were related to perceived social trait judgments. Together, our results link eye movement with neural face processing and provide important mechanistic insights for human face perception.

Indexed as

FaceAdultAmygdalaClinical ReasoningEye MovementsFemaleHippocampusHumansMaleMiddle AgedNeuronsPhotic StimulationRecognition, PsychologySingle-Cell AnalysisSociological Factors

Identifiers

PMID34907323
PMCPMC8671411

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.