scholarly journals Selective representations of texture and motion in mouse higher visual areas

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yiyi Yu ◽  
Jeffrey N. Stirman ◽  
Christopher R. Dorsett ◽  
Spencer L. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
Cortical Neurons ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Two Photon ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Data Driven Approach ◽  
Visual Cortical ◽  
Higher Visual Areas

Mice have a constellation of higher visual areas, but their functional specializations are unclear. Here, we used a data-driven approach to examine neuronal representations of complex visual stimuli across mouse higher visual areas, measured using large field-of-view two-photon calcium imaging. Using specialized stimuli, we found higher fidelity representations of texture in area LM, compared to area AL. Complementarily, we found higher fidelity representations of motion in area AL, compared to area LM. We also observed this segregation of information in response to naturalistic videos. Finally, we explored how popular models of visual cortical neurons could produce the segregated representations of texture and motion we observed. These selective representations could aid in behaviors such as visually guided navigation.

scholarly journals Mouse higher visual areas provide both distributed and discrete contributions to visually guided behaviors

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miaomiao Jin ◽  
Lindsey L. Glickfeld
Keyword(s):  
Orientation Discrimination ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Begging The Question ◽  
Distributed Representations ◽  
Cortical Areas ◽  
Contrast Detection ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Visual Cortical ◽  
Higher Visual Areas ◽  
Distinct Role

SummaryCortical parallel processing streams segregate many diverse features of a sensory scene. However, some features are distributed across streams, begging the question of whether and how such distributed representations contribute to perception. We determined the necessity of primary visual cortex (V1) and three key higher visual areas (LM, AL and PM) for perception of orientation and contrast, two features that are robustly encoded across all four areas. Suppressing V1, LM or AL decreased sensitivity for both orientation discrimination and contrast detection, consistent with a role for these areas in sensory perception. In comparison, suppressing PM selectively increased false alarm rates during contrast detection, without any effect on orientation discrimination. This effect was not retinotopically-specific, suggesting a distinct role for PM in the regulation of noise during decision-making. Thus, we find that distributed representations in the visual system can nonetheless support specialized perceptual roles for higher visual cortical areas.

scholarly journals Binocular integration of retinal motion information underlies optic flow processing by the cortex

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rune N. Rasmussen ◽  
Akihiro Matsumoto ◽  
Simon Arvin ◽  
Keisuke Yonehara
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Primary Visual Cortex ◽  
Optic Flow ◽  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
Direction Selectivity ◽  
Motion Information ◽  
Two Photon ◽  
Retinal Motion ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Higher Visual Areas

AbstractLocomotion creates various patterns of optic flow on the retina, which provide the observer with information about their movement relative to the environment. However, it is unclear how these optic flow patterns are encoded by the cortex. Here we use two-photon calcium imaging in awake mice to systematically map monocular and binocular responses to horizontal motion in four areas of the visual cortex. We find that neurons selective to translational or rotational optic flow are abundant in higher visual areas, whereas neurons suppressed by binocular motion are more common in the primary visual cortex. Disruption of retinal direction selectivity in Frmd7 mutant mice reduces the number of translation-selective neurons in the primary visual cortex, and translation- and rotation-selective neurons as well as binocular direction-selective neurons in the rostrolateral and anterior visual cortex, blurring the functional distinction between primary and higher visual areas. Thus, optic flow representations in specific areas of the visual cortex rely on binocular integration of motion information from the retina.

Linking sensory neurons to visually guided behavior: Relating MST activity to steering in a virtual environment

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 315-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
SETH W. EGGER ◽  
KENNETH H. BRITTEN
Keyword(s):  
Cortical Neurons ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Sensory System ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Neuronal Population ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
Lower Envelope ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Medial Superior Temporal ◽  
Visual Cortical

AbstractMany complex behaviors rely on guidance from sensations. To perform these behaviors, the motor system must decode information relevant to the task from the sensory system. However, identifying the neurons responsible for encoding the appropriate sensory information remains a difficult problem for neurophysiologists. A key step toward identifying candidate systems is finding neurons or groups of neurons capable of representing the stimuli adequately to support behavior. A traditional approach involves quantitatively measuring the performance of single neurons and comparing this to the performance of the animal. One of the strongest pieces of evidence in support of a neuronal population being involved in a behavioral task comes from the signals being sufficient to support behavior. Numerous experiments using perceptual decision tasks show that visual cortical neurons in many areas have this property. However, most visually guided behaviors are not categorical but continuous and dynamic. In this article, we review the concept of sufficiency and the tools used to measure neural and behavioral performance. We show how concepts from information theory can be used to measure the ongoing performance of both neurons and animal behavior. Finally, we apply these tools to dorsal medial superior temporal (MSTd) neurons and demonstrate that these neurons can represent stimuli important to navigation to a distant goal. We find that MSTd neurons represent ongoing steering error in a virtual-reality steering task. Although most individual neurons were insufficient to support the behavior, some very nearly matched the animal’s estimation performance. These results are consistent with many results from perceptual experiments and in line with the predictions of Mountcastle’s “lower envelope principle.”

scholarly journals The Flip Tilt Illusion: Visible in Peripheral Vision as Predicted by the Central-Peripheral Dichotomy

i-Perception ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 204166952093840
Author(s):  
Li Zhaoping
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Peripheral Vision ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Central Visual Field ◽  
Tilt Illusion ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Vertically Aligned ◽  
Visual Cortical ◽  
Higher Visual Areas

Consider a gray field comprising pairs of vertically aligned dots; in each pair, one dot is white the other black. When viewed in a peripheral visual field, these pairs appear horizontally aligned. By the Central-Peripheral Dichotomy, this flip tilt illusion arises because top-down feedback from higher to lower visual cortical areas is too weak or absent in the periphery to veto confounded feedforward signals from the primary visual cortex (V1). The white and black dots in each pair activate, respectively, on and off subfields of V1 neural receptive fields. However, the sub-fields’ orientations, and the preferred orientations, of the most activated neurons are orthogonal to the dot alignment. Hence, V1 reports the flip tilt to higher visual areas. Top-down feedback vetoes such misleading reports, but only in the central visual field.

scholarly journals A data‐driven approach to stimulus selection reveals an image‐based representation of objects in high‐level visual areas

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (16) ◽  
pp. 4716-4731 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Coggan ◽  
Afrodite Giannakopoulou ◽  
Sanah Ali ◽  
Burcu Goz ◽  
David M. Watson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Driven ◽  
Stimulus Selection ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Data Driven Approach ◽  
High Level

scholarly journals NoRMCorre: An online algorithm for piecewise rigid motion correction of calcium imaging data

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eftychios A. Pnevmatikakis ◽  
Andrea Giovannucci
Keyword(s):  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
Motion Correction ◽  
Rigid Motion ◽  
Motion Artifacts ◽  
Streaming Data ◽  
Field Of View ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Motion Field ◽  
Imaging Data ◽  
Two Photon

AbstractBackgroundMotion correction is a challenging pre-processing problem that arises early in the analysis pipeline of calcium imaging data sequences. The motion artifacts in two-photon microscopy recordings can be non-rigid, arising from the finite time of raster scanning and non-uniform deformations of the brain medium.New methodWe introduce an algorithm for fast Non-Rigid Motion Correction (NoRMCorre) based on template matching. NoRMCorre operates by splitting the field of view into overlapping spatial patches that are registered at a sub-pixel resolution for rigid translation against a continuously updated template. The estimated alignments are subsequently up-sampled to create a smooth motion field for each frame that can efficiently approximate non-rigid motion in a piecewise-rigid manner.Existing methodsExisting approaches either do not scale well in terms of computational performance or are targeted to motion artifacts arising from low speed scanning, whereas modern datasets with large field of view are more prone to non-rigid brain deformation issues.ResultsNoRMCorre can be run in an online mode resulting in comparable to or even faster than real time motion registration on streaming data. We evaluate the performance of the proposed method with simple yet intuitive metrics and compare against other non-rigid registration methods on two-photon calcium imaging datasets. Open source Matlab and Python code is also made available.ConclusionsThe proposed method and code provide valuable support to the community for solving large scale image registration problems in calcium imaging, especially when non-rigid deformations are present in the acquired data.

scholarly journals Independent representations of reward-predicting cues and reward history in frontal cortical neurons

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masashi Kondo ◽  
Masanori Matsuzaki
Keyword(s):  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
Cortical Neurons ◽  
Deep Layer ◽  
Wide Field ◽  
Water Reward ◽  
Sensory Inputs ◽  
Two Photon ◽  
Dorsomedial Frontal Cortex ◽  
Actual Outcome ◽  
Sensory Cue

SummaryThe transformation of sensory inputs to appropriate goal-directed actions requires estimation of sensory-cue values based on outcome history. To clarify how cortical neurons represent an outcome-predicting cue and actual outcome, we conducted wide-field and two-photon calcium imaging of the mouse neocortex during performance of a classical conditioning task with two cues with different water-reward probabilities. Although licking behavior dominated the area-averaged activity over the whole dorsal neocortex, dorsomedial frontal cortex (dmFrC) affected other dorsal frontal cortical activities, and its inhibition extinguished differences in anticipatory licking between the cues. In individual frontal cortical neurons, the reward-predicting cue was not simultaneously represented with the current or past reward, but licking behavior was frequently multiplexed with the reward-predicting cue and current or past reward. Deep-layer neurons in dmFrC most strongly represented the reward-predicting cue and recent reward history. Our results suggest that these neurons ignite the cortical processes required to select appropriate actions.

scholarly journals Diesel2p mesoscope with dual independent scan engines for flexible capture of dynamics in distributed neural circuitry

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Che-Hang Yu ◽  
Jeffrey N. Stirman ◽  
Yiyi Yu ◽  
Riichiro Hira ◽  
Spencer L. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Adaptive Optics ◽  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Optical Design ◽  
Neural Circuitry ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Field Of View ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Two Photon ◽  
Subcellular Resolution

AbstractImaging the activity of neurons that are widely distributed across brain regions deep in scattering tissue at high speed remains challenging. Here, we introduce an open-source system with Dual Independent Enhanced Scan Engines for Large Field-of-view Two-Photon imaging (Diesel2p). Combining novel optical design, adaptive optics, and temporal multiplexing, the system offers subcellular resolution over a large field-of-view (∼ 25 mm2) with independent scan engines. We demonstrate the flexibility and various use cases of this system for calcium imaging of neurons in the living brain.

scholarly journals Measuring stimulus-evoked neurophysiological differentiation in distinct populations of neurons in mouse visual cortex

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William G. P. Mayner ◽  
William Marshall ◽  
Yazan N. Billeh ◽  
Saurabh R. Gandhi ◽  
Shiella Caldejon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
Neural Coding ◽  
Cortical Layers ◽  
Two Photon ◽  
Large Populations ◽  
Neurophysiological Activity ◽  
Visual Cortical ◽  
Mouse Visual Cortex ◽  
Inside Out ◽  
Primary Lateral

AbstractDespite significant progress in understanding neural coding, it remains unclear how the coordinated activity of large populations of neurons relates to what an observer actually perceives. Since neurophysiological differences must underlie differences among percepts, differentiation analysis—quantifying distinct patterns of neurophysiological activity—is an “inside out” approach that addresses this question. We used two-photon calcium imaging in mice to systematically survey stimulus-evoked neurophysiological differentiation in excitatory populations across 3 cortical layers (L2/3, L4, and L5) in each of 5 visual cortical areas (primary, lateral, anterolateral, posteromedial, and anteromedial) in response to naturalistic and phase-scrambled movie stimuli. We find that unscrambled stimuli evoke greater neurophysiological differentiation than scrambled stimuli specifically in L2/3 of the anterolateral and anteromedial areas, and that this effect is modulated by arousal state and locomotion. Contrariwise, decoding performance was far above chance and did not vary substantially across areas and layers. Differentiation also differed within the unscrambled stimulus set, suggesting that differentiation analysis may be used to probe the ethological relevance of individual stimuli.

scholarly journals Interhemispherically dynamic representation of an eye movement-related activity in mouse frontal cortex

eLife ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi R Sato ◽  
Takahide Itokazu ◽  
Hironobu Osaki ◽  
Makoto Ohtake ◽  
Tetsuya Yamamoto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movement ◽  
Neural Plasticity ◽  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
Cortical Plasticity ◽  
Motor Recovery ◽  
Compensatory Mechanism ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Two Photon ◽  
Dynamic Representation

Cortical plasticity is fundamental to motor recovery following cortical perturbation. However, it is still unclear how this plasticity is induced at a functional circuit level. Here, we investigated motor recovery and underlying neural plasticity upon optogenetic suppression of a cortical area for eye movement. Using a visually-guided eye movement task in mice, we suppressed a portion of the secondary motor cortex (MOs) that encodes contraversive eye movement. Optogenetic unilateral suppression severely impaired contraversive movement on the first day. However, on subsequent days the suppression became inefficient and capability for the movement was restored. Longitudinal two-photon calcium imaging revealed that the regained capability was accompanied by an increased number of neurons encoding for ipsiversive movement in the unsuppressed contralateral MOs. Additional suppression of the contralateral MOs impaired the recovered movement again, indicating a compensatory mechanism. Our findings demonstrate that repeated optogenetic suppression leads to functional recovery mediated by the contralateral hemisphere.

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