research :: comparative brain imaging
Purpose
Our lab uses functional neuroimaging (FDG-PET) to visualize regions of the primate brain that are engaged during social processing tasks, like face recognition. This paradigm utilizes a radioactive form of glucose [ 18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) which can be ingested orally and has a half-life of 110 minutes. After receiving the FDG, the chimpanzees engage in a matching-to-sample task for 45 minutes. During this period, the radioactive glucose is absorbed by active neurons and becomes trapped there until it decays, providing a lasting signal of brain regions active during the task.
Image below shows regions of the chimpanzee brain that are more active during face (red) and object (yellow) processing compared to rest. The green shows regions that are active during both a face and object matching task (Parr et al., 2009).
Chimpanzees perform a face matching task as described in Research. They also perform an Object matching task. Basline metabolic activity is then removed from each of these conditions and resulting regions compared.
