Brain Uses Different Parts to Recognize Face, Body

Researchers at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research are using high resolution brain scanners to help settle one of the oldest debates in neuroscience, at least as it pertains to face recognition: Is the brain made up of highly specialized parts, each one optimized to conduct a single function? Or is it instead a general purpose device that can handle many different tasks while specializing in none?

Face recognition has long considered an example of brain specialization. In the 1990s, scientists narrowed this ability down to a brain region called the fusiform face area, or FFA, located near the back of the brain on the bottom surface. As evidence, researchers cited brain scans and people with FFA damage who could no longer recognize faces, even those of their family and closest friends.

The claim that the FFA was a specialized face area was later challenged by brain scans which showed that the FFA also responded to bodies and body parts.

Now, using even higher resolution brain scans, an MIT research team lead by neuroscientists Nancy Kanwisher show that the FFA actually consists of two distinct brain regions located very close together. This suggests that different areas of the brain are responsible for face and body recognition and that for these purposes at least, the notion of specialized brain areas still applies.