The connectional anatomy of visual mental imagery: evidence from a patient with left occipito-temporal damage.

Most of us can use our "mind's eye" to mentally visualize things that are not in our direct line of sight, an ability known as visual mental imagery. Extensive left temporal damage can impair patients' visual mental imagery experience, but the critical locus of lesion is unknown. Our recent meta-analysis of 27 fMRI studies of visual mental imagery highlighted a well-delimited region in the left lateral midfusiform gyrus, which was consistently activated during visual mental imagery, and which we called the Fusiform Imagery Node (FIN).

Behavioral Variant of Frontotemporal Dementia and Homicide in a Historical Case.

Criminal behavior is a clinical feature of the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), ranging from socially inappropriate behavior and minor offenses (such as shoplifting, driving-related violations, housebreaking, trespassing) to the more extreme acts of sex crimes and violence. To our knowledge, no homicide case involving bvFTD is well illustrated in the scientific literature, and only a few anecdotal annotations are available about bvFTD and homicide. This is surprising considering the inclination of individuals with bvFTD to lack impulse control, to manifest disinhibition, to display diminished emotional awareness and loss of empathy, and to show behavior indicative of disordered moral reasoning.

Visual mental imagery engages the left fusiform gyrus, but not the early visual cortex: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging evidence.

The dominant neural model of visual mental imagery (VMI) stipulates that memories from the medial temporal lobe acquire sensory features in early visual areas. However, neurological patients with damage restricted to the occipital cortex typically show perfectly vivid VMI, while more anterior damages extending into the temporal lobe, especially in the left hemisphere, often cause VMI impairments. Here we present two major results reconciling neuroimaging findings in neurotypical subjects with the performance of brain-damaged patients: (1) A large-scale meta-analysis of 46 fMRI studies, of which 27 investigated specifically visual mental imagery, revealed that VMI engages fronto-parietal networks and a well-delimited region in the left fusiform gyrus.