The organization of manipulable object concepts in the human brain.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, 2017.The capacity to manipulate objects according to their function is a fundamental cognitive ability that is utilized on a daily basis: We are constantly integrating knowledge of object identity and function with action knowledge to use objects in accordance with our behavioral goals. Previous research has described a whole-brain network of regions, referred to as the Tool Processing Network, that collectively support object recognition and object use ability. However, the neural mechanisms that integrate object representations with action representations in the service of object use remain poorly understood. The work reported in this thesis investigates the functional interactions among regions of the Tool Processing Network during object recognition and object use from three perspectives: i) functional MRI in healthy and brain damaged adults (Chapters 2, 3, 5, 7), ii) behavioral studies in healthy adults (Chapters 4 and 6), and iii) neuropsychological evaluations of patients with disorders of object use (Chapter 6). The principal insight of the work presented herein is that the neural mechanisms that support object-directed grasping and manipulation are contingent upon privileged functional interactions that come by way of the ventral object-processing pathway