A dynamic body-selective area localizer for use in fMRI

Functional localizers allow the definition of regions of interest in the human brain that cannot be delineated by anatomical markers alone. To date, when localizing the body-selective areas of the visual cortex using fMRI, researchers have used static images of bodies and objects. However, there are other relevant brain areas involved in the processing of moving bodies and action interpretation that are missed by these techniques. Typically, these biological motion areas are localized separately using whole and scrambled point-light display stimuli. Currently, one can only localize either the static body-selective areas or the biological motion areas, but not both together. Here, for the first time, using motion-controlled dynamic body and object stimuli, we describe a method for localizing the full dynamic body-selective network of the human brain in one experimental run. • The method uses dynamic body and object stimuli. • Low-level local motion information is added as a covariate into the fMRI analysis. • This localizes the full dynamic body-selective network of the human brain.