The Bank of England's monetary policy

As the second oldest and perhaps the most renowned central bank, the Bank of England could provide some important insights into issues that may confront the Federal Reserve System in the future.Monetary policy - Great Britain ; Bank of England ; Banks and banking, Central - Great Britain

Issues in economics: what is the cost of deflation?

A steady decline in the core rate of inflation over the past few years has prompted the question: What are the economic consequences when the inflation rate drops below zero?Deflation (Finance)

Maps of complex motion selectivity in the superior temporal cortex of the alert macaque monkey: a double-label 2-deoxyglucose study

The superior temporal sulcus (STS) of the macaque monkey contains multiple visual areas. Many neurons within these regions respond selectively to motion direction and to more complex motion patterns, such as expansion, contraction and rotation. Single-unit recording and optical recording studies in MT/MST suggest that cells with similar tuning properties are clustered into columns extending through multiple cortical layers. In this study, we used a double-label 2-deoxyglucose technique in awake, behaving macaque monkeys to clarify this functional organization. This technique allowed us to label, in a single animal, two populations of neurons responding to two different visual stimuli. In one monkey we compared expansion with contraction; in a second monkey we compared expansion with clockwise rotation. Within the STS we found a patchy arrangement of cortical columns with alternating stimulus selectivity: columns of neurons preferring expansion versus contraction were more widely separated than those selective for expansion versus rotation. This mosaic of interdigitating columns on the floor and posterior bank of the STS included area MT and some neighboring regions of cortex, perhaps including area MST

A Cortical Region Consisting Entirely of Face-Selective Cells

Face perception is a skill crucial to primates. In both humans and macaque monkeys, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) reveals a system of cortical regions that show increased blood flow when the subject views images of faces, compared with images of objects. However, the stimulus selectivity of single neurons within these fMRI-identified regions has not been studied. We used fMRI to identify and target the largest face-selective region in two macaques for single-unit recording. Almost all (97%) of the visually responsive neurons in this region were strongly face selective, indicating that a dedicated cortical area exists to support face processing in the macaque

Neuroimaging Weighs In: Humans Meet Macaques in “Primate” Visual Cortex

It has been only a decade since functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was introduced, but approximately four fMRI papers are now published every working day. Here we review this progress in a well studied system: primate visual cortex

A Cortical Region Consisting Entirely of Face-Selective Cells

Face perception is a skill crucial to primates. In both humans and macaque monkeys, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) reveals a system of cortical regions that show increased blood flow when the subject views images of faces, compared with images of objects. However, the stimulus selectivity of single neurons within these fMRI-identified regions has not been studied. We used fMRI to identify and target the largest face-selective region in two macaques for single-unit recording. Almost all (97%) of the visually responsive neurons in this region were strongly face selective, indicating that a dedicated cortical area exists to support face processing in the macaque

A problem of overlap

Here we propose that earlier-demonstrated details in the primate visual cortical map may account for an otherwise puzzling (and problematic) finding in the current human fMRI literature. Specifically, the well-known regions LO and MT(+) reportedly overlap in the human cortical visual map, when those two regions are localized using standard stimulus comparisons in conventional fMRI experiments. Here we describe evidence supporting the idea that the apparent functional overlap between LO and MT arises from a third area (the MT crescent: “MTc”), which is well known to surround posterior MT based on earlier histological, neuroanatomical, and electrophysiological studies in nonhuman primates. If we assume that MTc also exists in human visual cortex, and that it has a location and functional properties intermediate to those in LO and MT, simplistic modeling confirmed that this arrangement could produce apparent overlap between localizers for LO and MT in conventional fMRI maps in human visual cortex

The Radial Bias: A Different Slant on Visual Orientation Sensitivity in Human and Nonhuman Primates

SummaryIt is generally assumed that sensitivity to different stimulus orientations is mapped in a globally equivalent fashion across primate visual cortex, at a spatial scale larger than that of orientation columns. However, some evidence predicts instead that radial orientations should produce higher activity than other orientations, throughout visual cortex. Here, this radial orientation bias was robustly confirmed using (1) human psychophysics, plus fMRI in (2) humans and (3) behaving monkeys. In visual cortex, fMRI activity was at least 20% higher in the retinotopic representations of polar angle which corresponded to the radial stimulus orientations (relative to tangential). In a global demonstration of this, we activated complementary retinotopic quadrants of visual cortex by simply changing stimulus orientation, without changing stimulus location in the visual field. This evidence reveals a neural link between orientation sensitivity and the cortical retinotopy, which have previously been considered independent