A vision of (numerical) cognition: neural mechanisms of numerosity

Abstract

Numerosity, the set size of a group of items, helps guide behaviour and decisions. Using ultra-high field MRI at 7T and population receptive field modelling, we have described neural populations responding to specific numerosities organized in systematic topographic maps, analogous to primary sensory and motor cortical maps. These numerosity maps extend topographic principles to higher-order features in association cortex. Besides topographic principles, we found that many principles that are well-established in vision extend to the field of numerical cognition, though we will also describe some differences. Last, I will also show why the reconstruction of these maps, and cognitive neuroscience in general, needs 7T MRI.

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