My work focuses on understanding the behavioral and neural correlates of face and object recognition. I work with physicists to optimize sequencing parameters for functional neuroimaging using Vanderbilt’s 7-Tesla scanner and focusing on the ventral temporal cortex. Using high resolution fMRI at 7T, my colleagues and I have characterized responses to faces, non-face object of expertise, and common objects in subjects with varied expertise. We have shown that neural selectivity and proportional representation of objects in FFA increased with expertise, including in face-selective voxels within the 25 mm2 peak of face selectivity. FFA responses to objects were restricted to a 200mm2 area centered on the FFA peak. In more recent studies at 7T and 3T, I have asked questions about the effects of expertise during conditions of divided attention. Our data suggest unique response properties in the posterior and anterior regions of right and left FFA. With colleagues, I developed the Vanderbilt Expertise Test, which provides a reliable and valid measure of object recognition abilities, and can measure both domain-general skills as well as domain-specific expertise, both of which we’ve shown to depend on sex.
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/psychological_sciences/bio/rankin-mcgugin