Visual responses of sheep temporal cortex cells to moving and stationary human images.

Single-cell extracellular recordings were made from temporal cortical neurones in the conscious sheep. The visual responses of these cells to stationary or moving images of humans were investigated. Results from 6 animals showed that a small population of cells responded preferentially to the sight of humans as opposed to other objects or food. These cells did not respond to visual images of the human face, or to individual body parts (legs or arms) or to the smell of a human. The majority of cells showed direction selectivity, with the most effective stimulus being a human moving towards the animal. Cells did not respond differentially to the front and back view of a human although the side view was less effective. The posture adopted by the human was important, since responses were diminished or absent if the human adopted a quadrupedal as opposed to the normal bipedal posture. These results provide evidence for integrated neural processing of both visual recognition, movement and posture in the sheep temporal cortex.