Enhancement of oblique effect in the cat’s primary visual cortex via orientation preference shifting induced by excitatory feedback from higher-order cortical area 21a

Previous studies indicate that top-down influence plays a critical role in visual information processing and perceptual detection. However, the substrate that carries top-down influence remains poorly understood. Using a combined technique of retrograde neuronal tracing and immunofluorescent double labeling, we characterized the distribution and cell type of feedback neurons in cat’s high-level visual cortical areas that send direct connections to the primary visual cortex (V1: area 17). Our results showed: (1) the high-level visual cortex of area 21a at the ventral stream and PMLS area at the dorsal stream have a similar proportion of feedback neurons back projecting to the V1 area, (2) the distribution of feedback neurons in the higher-order visual area 21a and PMLS was significantly denser than in the intermediate visual cortex of area 19 and 18, (3) feedback neurons in all observed high-level visual cortex were found in layer II–III, IV, V, and VI, with a higher proportion in layer II–III, V, and VI than in layer IV, and (4) most feedback neurons were CaMKII-positive excitatory neurons, and few of them were identified as inhibitory GABAergic neurons. These results may argue against the segregation of ventral and dorsal streams during visual information processing, and support “reverse hierarchy theory” or interactive model proposing that recurrent connections between V1 and higher-order visual areas constitute the functional circuits that mediate visual perception. Also, the corticocortical feedback neurons from high-level visual cortical areas to the V1 area are mostly excitatory in nature.

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Higher-Order Visual Cortex Shows Stronger Neural Correlates of Visual and Multisensory Detection Behavior Compared to Primary Visual Cortex

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.3414701 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Guido Meijer ◽

Pietro Marchesi ◽

Jorge Mejias ◽

Jorrit Montijn ◽

Carien Lansink ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Primary Visual Cortex ◽

Neural Correlates ◽

Higher Order

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The Mystery of Louis Verrey (1854-1916)

Gesnerus ◽

10.1163/22977953-0500102008 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 50 (1-2) ◽

pp. 96-112

Author(s):

Semir Zeki

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Human Brain ◽

Primary Visual Cortex ◽

Cortical Area ◽

Functional Specialization ◽

Colour Centre ◽

Monkey Brain ◽

Experimental Discovery ◽

Separate Area

In 1888, Louis Verrey, a Swiss ophthalmologist, stated emphatically that there is a "centre for the chromatic sense" in the human brain and that it is located in the lingual and fusiform gyri. He did not, however, consider the “colour centre” to be a separate area but a large sub-division of the primary visual cortex. His evidence was quickly dismissed and forgotten. It was not to be taken seriously again until after the experimental discovery of functional specialization in the monkey brain. This paper considers why it is that Verrey did not consider the “colour centre” to be a separate cortical area, distinct from the primary visual cortex, why his evidence was so quickly and effectively dismissed, and why it is that Verrey did not pursue the logic of his findings.

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Heterogeneity in local distributions of orientation-selective neurons in the cat primary visual cortex

Visual Neuroscience ◽

10.1017/s095252380000818x ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 509-516 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Pedro E. Maldonado ◽

Charles M. Gray

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Primary Visual Cortex ◽

Local Level ◽

Spike Trains ◽

Preferred Orientation ◽

Orientation Tuning ◽

Area 17 ◽

Average Difference ◽

Orientation Preference ◽

Neuronal Spike Trains

AbstractWe have employed the tetrode technique, which allows accurate discrimination of individual neuronal spike trains from multiunit recordings, in order to examine the variation of orientation selectivity among local groups of neurons. We recorded a total of 321 cells from 62 sites in area 17 of halothane-anesthetized cats; each site contained between three to ten neurons that were estimated to be less than 65 μm away from the tetrode tip. For each cell, we determined the orientation tuning in response to moving bars. Of the cells tested, 8.4% were unresponsive, 22.7% had no preferential response to any particular orientation, while 68.8% were tuned. The average difference in preferred orientation between cell pairs recorded at the same site was 10.7 deg, but the variance in preferred orientation differences differed significantly among sites. Some clusters of cells exhibited the same or nearly the same orientation preference, while others had orientation preferences that differed by as much as 90 deg. Our data demonstrate that the tuning for orientation is more heterogeneously distributed at a local level than previous studies have suggested.

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A collicular visual cortex: Neocortical space for an ancient midbrain visual structure

Science ◽

10.1126/science.aau7052 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 363 (6422) ◽

pp. 64-69 ◽

Cited By ~ 54

Author(s):

Riccardo Beltramo ◽

Massimo Scanziani

Keyword(s):

Cerebral Cortex ◽

Visual Cortex ◽

Primary Visual Cortex ◽

Visual Information ◽

Cortical Area ◽

Moving Objects ◽

Visual Responses ◽

Visual Cortical Area ◽

Postrhinal Cortex ◽

Visual Cortical

Visual responses in the cerebral cortex are believed to rely on the geniculate input to the primary visual cortex (V1). Indeed, V1 lesions substantially reduce visual responses throughout the cortex. Visual information enters the cortex also through the superior colliculus (SC), but the function of this input on visual responses in the cortex is less clear. SC lesions affect cortical visual responses less than V1 lesions, and no visual cortical area appears to entirely rely on SC inputs. We show that visual responses in a mouse lateral visual cortical area called the postrhinal cortex are independent of V1 and are abolished upon silencing of the SC. This area outperforms V1 in discriminating moving objects. We thus identify a collicular primary visual cortex that is independent of the geniculo-cortical pathway and is capable of motion discrimination.

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Corticocortical connections between area 21a and primary visual cortex in the cat

Neuroreport ◽

10.1097/00001756-199703240-00041 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 8 (5) ◽

pp. 1263-1266 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

John W. Morley ◽

Liqun Yuan ◽

Richard M. Vickery

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Primary Visual Cortex ◽

Corticocortical Connections ◽

Area 21A

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The Joint Development of Orientation and Ocular Dominance: Role of Constraints

Neural Computation ◽

10.1162/neco.1997.9.5.959 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 9 (5) ◽

pp. 959-970 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Christian Piepenbrock ◽

Helge Ritter ◽

Klaus Obermayer

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Primary Visual Cortex ◽

Ocular Dominance ◽

Receptive Fields ◽

Simple Cell ◽

Orientation Preference ◽

Joint Development ◽

Independent Work ◽

Insight Into

Correlation-based learning (CBL) has been suggested as the mechanism that underlies the development of simple-cell receptive fields in the primary visual cortex of cats, including orientation preference (OR) and ocular dominance (OD) (Linsker, 1986; Miller, Keller, & Stryker, 1989). CBL has been applied successfully to the development of OR and OD individually (Miller, Keller, & Stryker, 1989; Miller, 1994; Miyashita & Tanaka, 1991; Erwin, Obermayer, & Schulten, 1995), but the conditions for their joint development have not been studied (but see Erwin & Miller, 1995, for independent work on the same question) in contrast to competitive Hebbian models (Obermayer, Blasdel, & Schulten, 1992). In this article, we provide insight into why this has been the case: OR and OD decouple in symmetric CBL models, and a joint development of OR and OD is possible only in a parameter regime that depends on nonlinear mechanisms.

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Running reduces firing but improves coding in rodent higher-order visual cortex

10.1101/214007 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Amelia J. Christensen ◽

Jonathan W. Pillow

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Primary Visual Cortex ◽

Single Neuron ◽

Higher Order ◽

Visual Responses ◽

Cortical Layers ◽

Response Properties ◽

Stimulus Response ◽

Allen Brain ◽

Visual Areas

Running profoundly alters stimulus-response properties in mouse primary visual cortex (V1), but its effects in higher-order visual cortex remain unknown. Here we systematically investigated how locomotion modulates visual responses across six visual areas and three cortical layers using a massive dataset from the Allen Brain Institute. Although running has been shown to increase firing in V1, we found that it suppressed firing in higher-order visual areas. Despite this reduction in gain, visual responses during running could be decoded more accurately than visual responses during stationary periods. We show that this effect was not attributable to changes in noise correlations, and propose that it instead arises from increased reliability of single neuron responses during running.

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