Yangjianyi Cao¹ (ycao2@uab.edu), Yanna Mao², Shuai Chang³, Li Zhaoping⁴, Ming Meng¹; ¹University of Alabama at Birmingham, United States, ²South China Normal University, China, ³Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center of Sun Yat-Sen University, China, ⁴University of Tübingen, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Germany

Prior research on visual perception suggests that the foveal region of V1 exhibits strong top-down feedback (Zhaoping, 2023, Trends Cog. Sci.) and contains high-level information about objects located in the peripheral visual field (Williams et al., 2008, Nat. Neurosci.). Although visual mental imagery is the cognitive ability to voluntarily generate internal representations without sensory inputs, it activates remarkably overlapping brain regions with visual perception, particularly in the primary visual cortex (V1). However, it remains unknown whether and how the foveal region is involved in representing imagined targets located in the periphery. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we measured neural activity in individuals with aphantasia and typical imagers during a voluntary imagery task. Participants were instructed to imagine a green-vertical or red-horizontal Gabor patch in their left or right visual field. We employed univariate analysis and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) within retinotopically defined V1 to assess BOLD signal amplitude and decode the combined spatial and feature information of the imagined targets. Results revealed that, unlike typical imagers who showed no significant activation in the foveal region of V1, individuals with aphantasia exhibited significant negative BOLD signal changes compared with the no imagery period. Crucially, this signal reduction did not compromise multivariate pattern decoding in the foveal region, as its accuracy remained significantly above chance level. This suggests that, despite the absence of subjective visual experience, aphantasic individuals may recruit alternative neural strategies to engage the foveal region when attempting to generate the specific internal representation. Collectively, these results advance our understanding of visual imagery generation by identifying the foveal region of V1 as a critical hub for top-down feedback modulation. Furthermore, this finding supports the argument that V1 does not merely passively receive external input but also actively shapes subjective experience, thereby serving as a necessary substrate for visual awareness.