Stimulus versus eye movements: Comparison of neural activity in the striate and prelunate visual cortex (A17 and A19) of trained rhesus monkey

1981 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Fischer ◽  
R. Boch ◽  
M. Bach
Author(s):  
Richard Johnston ◽  
Adam C. Snyder ◽  
Sanjeev B. Khanna ◽  
Deepa Issar ◽  
Matthew A. Smith

SummaryDecades of research have shown that global brain states such as arousal can be indexed by measuring the properties of the eyes. Neural signals from individual neurons, populations of neurons, and field potentials measured throughout much of the brain have been associated with the size of the pupil, small fixational eye movements, and vigor in saccadic eye movements. However, precisely because the eyes have been associated with modulation of neural activity across the brain, and many different kinds of measurements of the eyes have been made across studies, it has been difficult to clearly isolate how internal states affect the behavior of the eyes, and vice versa. Recent work in our laboratory identified a latent dimension of neural activity in macaque visual cortex on the timescale of minutes to tens of minutes. This ‘slow drift’ was associated with perceptual performance on an orientation-change detection task, as well as neural activity in visual and prefrontal cortex (PFC), suggesting it might reflect a shift in a global brain state. This motivated us to ask if the neural signature of this internal state is correlated with the action of the eyes in different behavioral tasks. We recorded from visual cortex (V4) while monkeys performed a change detection task, and the prefrontal cortex, while they performed a memory-guided saccade task. On both tasks, slow drift was associated with a pattern that is indicative of changes in arousal level over time. When pupil size was large, and the subjects were in a heighted state of arousal, microsaccade rate and reaction time decreased while saccade velocity increased. These results show that the action of the eyes is associated with a dominant mode of neural activity that is pervasive and task-independent, and can be accessed in the population activity of neurons across the cortex.


2009 ◽  
Vol 102 (6) ◽  
pp. 3469-3480 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. M. Van Ettinger-Veenstra ◽  
W. Huijbers ◽  
T. P. Gutteling ◽  
M. Vink ◽  
J. L. Kenemans ◽  
...  

It is well known that parts of a visual scene are prioritized for visual processing, depending on the current situation. How the CNS moves this focus of attention across the visual image is largely unknown, although there is substantial evidence that preparation of an action is a key factor. Our results support the view that direct corticocortical feedback connections from frontal oculomotor areas to the visual cortex are responsible for the coupling between eye movements and shifts of visuospatial attention. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)–guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to the frontal eye fields (FEFs) and intraparietal sulcus (IPS). A single pulse was delivered 60, 30, or 0 ms before a discrimination target was presented at, or next to, the target of a saccade in preparation. Results showed that the known enhancement of discrimination performance specific to locations to which eye movements are being prepared was enhanced by early TMS on the FEF contralateral to eye movement direction, whereas TMS on the IPS resulted in a general performance increase. The current findings indicate that the FEF affects selective visual processing within the visual cortex itself through direct feedback projections.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Segraves ◽  
Emory Kuo ◽  
Sara Caddigan ◽  
Emily A. Berthiaume ◽  
Konrad P. Kording

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. e0256791
Author(s):  
Daichi Konno ◽  
Shinji Nishimoto ◽  
Takafumi Suzuki ◽  
Yuji Ikegaya ◽  
Nobuyoshi Matsumoto

The brain continuously produces internal activity in the absence of afferently salient sensory input. Spontaneous neural activity is intrinsically defined by circuit structures and associated with the mode of information processing and behavioral responses. However, the spatiotemporal dynamics of spontaneous activity in the visual cortices of behaving animals remain almost elusive. Using a custom-made electrode array, we recorded 32-site electrocorticograms in the primary and secondary visual cortex of freely behaving rats and determined the propagation patterns of spontaneous neural activity. Nonlinear dimensionality reduction and unsupervised clustering revealed multiple discrete states of the activity patterns. The activity remained stable in one state and suddenly jumped to another state. The diversity and dynamics of the internally switching cortical states would imply flexibility of neural responses to various external inputs.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yashar Zeighami ◽  
Sylvain Iceta ◽  
Mahsa Dadar ◽  
Mélissa Pelletier ◽  
Mélanie Nadeau ◽  
...  

1.AbstractBackgroundMetabolic disorders associated with obesity could lead to alterations in brain structure and function. Whether these changes can be reversed after weight loss is unclear. Bariatric surgery provides a unique opportunity to address these questions because it induces marked weight loss and metabolic improvements which in turn may impact the brain in a longitudinal fashion. Previous studies found widespread changes in grey matter (GM) and white matter (WM) after bariatric surgery. However, findings regarding changes in spontaneous neural activity following surgery, as assessed with the fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (fALFF) and regional homogeneity of neural activity (ReHo), are scarce and heterogenous. In this study, we used a longitudinal design to examine the changes in spontaneous neural activity after bariatric surgery (comparing pre- to post-surgery), and to determine whether these changes are related to cardiometabolic variables.MethodsThe study included 57 participants with severe obesity (mean BMI=43.1±4.3kg/m2) who underwent sleeve gastrectomy (SG), biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch (BPD), or Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), scanned prior to bariatric surgery and at follow-up visits of 4 months (N=36), 12 months (N=29), and 24 months (N=14) after surgery. We examined fALFF and ReHo measures across 1022 cortical and subcortical regions (based on combined Schaeffer-Xiao parcellations) using a linear mixed effect model. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) based on T1-weighted images was also used to measure GM density in the same regions. We also used an independent sample from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) to assess regional differences between individuals who had normal-weight (N=46) or severe obesity (N=46).ResultsWe found a global increase in the fALFF signal with greater increase within dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, precuneus, inferior temporal gyrus, and visual cortex. This effect was more significant 4 months after surgery. The increase within dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, temporal gyrus, and visual cortex was more limited after 12 months and only present in the visual cortex after 24 months. These increases in neural activity measured by fALFF were also significantly associated with the increase in GM density following surgery. Furthermore, the increase in neural activity was significantly related to post-surgery weight loss and improvement in cardiometabolic variables, such as insulin resistance index and blood pressure. In the independent HCP sample, normal-weight participants had higher global and regional fALFF signals, mainly in dorsolateral/medial frontal cortex, precuneus and middle/inferior temporal gyrus compared to the obese participants. These BMI-related differences in fALFF were associated with the increase in fALFF 4 months post-surgery especially in regions involved in control, default mode and dorsal attention networks.ConclusionsBariatric surgery-induced weight loss and improvement in metabolic factors are associated with widespread global and regional increases in neural activity, as measured by fALFF signal. These findings alongside the higher fALFF signal in normal-weight participants compared to participants with severe obesity in an independent dataset suggest an early recovery in the neural activity signal level after the surgery.


2008 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 1476-1487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bin Zhang ◽  
Earl L. Smith ◽  
Yuzo M. Chino

Vision of newborn infants is limited by immaturities in their visual brain. In adult primates, the transient onset discharges of visual cortical neurons are thought to be intimately involved with capturing the rapid succession of brief images in visual scenes. Here we sought to determine the responsiveness and quality of transient responses in individual neurons of the primary visual cortex (V1) and visual area 2 (V2) of infant monkeys. We show that the transient component of neuronal firing to 640-ms stationary gratings was as robust and as reliable as in adults only 2 wk after birth, whereas the sustained component was more sluggish in infants than in adults. Thus the cortical circuitry supporting onset transient responses is functionally mature near birth, and our findings predict that neonates, known for their “impoverished vision,” are capable of initiating relatively mature fixating eye movements and of performing in detection of simple objects far better than traditionally thought.


Science ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 175 (4022) ◽  
pp. 661-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Noda ◽  
R. B. Freeman ◽  
O. D. Creutzfeldt
Keyword(s):  

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