scholarly journals Primate Extrastriate Cortical Area MST: A Gateway between Sensation and Cognition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedict Wild ◽  
Stefan Treue
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Motion Patterns ◽  
Medial Superior Temporal ◽  
Vestibular Cues ◽  
Primate Visual Cortex ◽  
Self Motion

Primate visual cortex consists of dozens of distinct brain areas, each providing a highly specialized component to the sophisticated task of encoding the incoming sensory information and creating a representation of our visual environment that underlies our perception and action. One such area is the medial superior temporal cortex (MST), a motion-sensitive, direction-selective part of the primate visual cortex. It receives most of its input from the middle temporal (MT) area, but MST cells have larger receptive fields and respond to more complex motion patterns. The finding that MST cells are tuned for optic flow patterns has led to the suggestion that the area plays an important role in the perception of self-motion. This hypothesis has received further support from studies showing that some MST cells also respond selectively to vestibular cues. Furthermore, the area is part of a network that controls the planning and execution of smooth pursuit eye movements and its activity is modulated by cognitive factors, such as attention and working memory. This review of more than 90 studies focuses on providing clarity of the heterogeneous findings on MST in the macaque cortex and its putative homolog in the human cortex. From this analysis of the unique anatomical and functional position in the hierarchy of areas and processing steps in primate visual cortex, MST emerges as a gateway between perception, cognition, and action planning. Given this pivotal role, this area represents an ideal model system for the transition from sensation to cognition.

scholarly journals Robust Encoding of Abstract Rules by Distinct Neuronal Populations in Primate Visual Cortex

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donatas Jonikaitis ◽  
Nir Nissim ◽  
Ruobing Xia ◽  
Tirin Moore
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Sensory Stimulation ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Stimulus Selection ◽  
Neuronal Populations ◽  
Primate Visual Cortex ◽  
Behavioral Constraints ◽  
Sensory Responses ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractIt is widely known that neural activity in sensory representations is modulated by cognitive factors such as attention, reward value and working memory. In such cases, sensory responses are found to reflect a selection of the specific sensory information needed to achieve behavioral goals. In contrast, more abstract behavioral constraints that do not involve stimulus selection, such as task rules, are thought to be encoded by neurons at later stages. We show that information about abstract rules is encoded by neurons in primate visual cortex in the absence of sensory stimulation. Furthermore, we show that rule information is greatest among neurons with the least visual activity and the weakest coupling to local neuronal networks. Our results identify rule-specific signals within a sensory representation and suggest that distinct mechanisms exist there for mapping rule information onto sensory guided decisions.

scholarly journals Neural Sampling Strategies for Visual Stimulus Reconstruction fromTwo-photon Imaging of Mouse Primary Visual Cortex

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stef Garasto ◽  
Wilten Nicola ◽  
Anil A. Bharath ◽  
Simon R. Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Primary Visual Cortex ◽  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Poisson Model ◽  
Network Size ◽  
Linear Estimator ◽  
Reconstruction Performance ◽  
Stimulus Reconstruction

AbstractDeciphering the neural code involves interpreting the responses of sensory neurons from the perspective of a downstream population. Performing such a read-out is an important step towards understanding how the brain processes sensory information and has implications for Brain-Machine Interfaces. While previous work has focused on classification algorithms to identify a stimulus in a predefined set of categories, few studies have approached a full-stimulus reconstruction task, especially from calcium imaging recordings. Here, we attempt a pixel-by-pixel reconstruction of complex natural stimuli from two-photon calcium imaging of mouse primary visual cortex. We decoded the activity of 103 neurons from layer 2/3 using an optimal linear estimator and investigated which factors drive the reconstruction performance at the pixel level. We find the density of receptive fields to be the most influential feature. Finally, we use the receptive field data and simulations from a linear-nonlinear Poisson model to extrapolate decoding accuracy as a function of network size. We find that, on this dataset, reconstruction performance can increase by more than 50%, provided that the receptive fields are sampled more uniformly in the full visual field. These results provide practical experimental guidelines to boost the accuracy of full-stimulus reconstruction.

scholarly journals Emergence of opposite neurons in a firing-rate model of multisensory integration

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ho Yin Chau ◽  
Wen-Hao Zhang ◽  
Tai Sing Lee
Keyword(s):  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Neural Circuit ◽  
Hebbian Learning ◽  
Medial Superior Temporal ◽  
Learning Rules ◽  
Vestibular Cues ◽  
The One ◽  
Von Mises ◽  
Integrated Or ◽  
Self Motion

ABSTRACTOpposite neurons, found in macaque dorsal medial superior temporal (MSTd) and ventral intraparietal (VIP) areas, combine visual and vestibular cues of self-motion in opposite ways. A neural circuit recently proposed utilizes opposite neurons to perform causal inference and decide whether the visual and vestibular cues in MSTd and VIP should be integrated or segregated. However, it is unclear how these opposite connections can be formed with biologically realistic learning rules. We propose a network model capable of learning these opposite neurons, using Hebbian and Anti-Hebbian learning rules. The learned neurons are topographically organized and have von Mises-shaped feedforward connections, with tuning properties characteristic of opposite neurons. Our purpose is two-fold: on the one hand, we provide a circuit-level mechanism that explains the properties and formation of opposite neurons; on the other hand, we present a way to extend current theories of multisensory integration to account for appropriate segregation of sensory cues.

scholarly journals Action-specific feature processing in the human visual cortex

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Monaco ◽  
Ying Chen ◽  
Nicholas Menghi ◽  
J Douglas Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Primary Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Visual Object ◽  
Cortical Processing ◽  
Visual Stream ◽  
Dorsal Visual Stream

AbstractSensorimotor integration involves feedforward and reentrant processing of sensory input. Grasp-related motor activity precedes and is thought to influence visual object processing. Yet, while the importance of reentrant feedback is well established in perception, the top-down modulations for action and the neural circuits involved in this process have received less attention. Do action-specific intentions influence the processing of visual information in the human cortex? Using a cue-separation fMRI paradigm, we found that action-specific instruction (manual alignment vs. grasp) influences the cortical processing of object orientation several seconds after the object had been viewed. This influence occurred as early as in the primary visual cortex and extended to ventral and dorsal visual stream areas. Importantly, this modulation was unrelated to non-specific action planning. Further, the primary visual cortex showed stronger functional connectivity with frontal-parietal areas and the inferior temporal cortex during the delay following orientation processing for align than grasping movements, strengthening the idea of reentrant feedback from dorsal visual stream areas involved in action. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that intended manual actions have such an early, pervasive, and differential influence on the cortical processing of vision.

Analysis of object motion in the ventral part of the medial superior temporal area of the macaque visual cortex

1993 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Tanaka ◽  
Y. Sugita ◽  
M. Moriya ◽  
H. Saito
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Object Motion ◽  
Ventral Part ◽  
Dorsal Part ◽  
Stationary Object ◽  
Temporal Area ◽  
Small Stimulus ◽  
Medial Superior Temporal ◽  
Stationary Background

1. The medial superior temporal area (MST) is an extrastriate area of the macaque visual cortex. Cells in MST have large receptive fields and respond to moving stimuli with directional selectivity. We previously suggested that the dorsal part of MST is mainly involved in analysis of field motion caused by movements of the animal itself, because most cells in the dorsal part preferentially responded to movements of a wide textured field rather than to movements of a small stimulus. To determine whether the remaining ventral part of MST differs in function from the dorsal part, we examined properties of cells in the ventral part in comparison with those of cells in the dorsal part, using anesthetized and paralyzed preparation. 2. Most cells in the ventral part preferably responded to movements of a small stimulus rather than to movements of a wide textured field. 3. Although the cells in the ventral part did not respond to movements of a textured field over a large window, many of them began to respond when a small stationary object was introduced in front of the moving field. The direction to which the cells responded in this stimulus configuration was opposite to the direction in which they responded to movements of an object on a stationary background. Activities of these cells thus represented the direction of relative movement of an object on a background, irrespective of whether the image of the object or the background moved on the retina. 4. We conclude that the ventral part of MST is distinctive from the dorsal part of MST and is mainly involved in the analysis of object movements in external space.

scholarly journals Emergence of opposite neurons in a decentralized firing-rate model of multisensory integration

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xueyan Niu ◽  
Ho Yin Chau ◽  
Tai Sing Lee ◽  
Wen-Hao Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Computational Model ◽  
Firing Rate ◽  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Hebbian Learning ◽  
Rate Model ◽  
New Model ◽  
Medial Superior Temporal ◽  
Learning Rules ◽  
Vestibular Cues ◽  
Self Motion

AbstractMultisensory integration areas such as dorsal medial superior temporal (MSTd) and ventral intraparietal (VIP) areas in macaques combine visual and vestibular cues to produce better estimates of self-motion. Congruent and opposite neurons, two types of neurons found in these areas, prefer congruent inputs and opposite inputs from the two modalities, respectively. A recently proposed computational model of congruent and opposite neurons reproduces their tuning properties and shows that congruent neurons optimally integrate information while opposite neurons compute disparity information. However, the connections in the network are fixed rather than learned, and in fact the connections of opposite neurons, as we will show, cannot arise from Hebbian learning rules. We therefore propose a new model of multisensory integration in which congruent neurons and opposite neurons emerge through Hebbian and anti-Hebbian learning rules, and show that these neurons exhibit experimentally observed tuning properties.

scholarly journals Impact of acute visual experience on development of LGN receptive fields in the ferret

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea K Stacy ◽  
Nathan A Schneider ◽  
Noah K Gilman ◽  
Stephen D Van Hooser
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Cortical Neurons ◽  
Visual Experience ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Direction Selectivity ◽  
In Vivo Electrophysiology ◽  
Primate Visual Cortex ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Visual Cortical

Selectivity for direction of motion is a key feature of primary visual cortical neurons. Visual experience is required for direction selectivity in carnivore and primate visual cortex, but the circuit mechanisms of its formation remain incompletely understood. Here we examined how developing lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) neurons may contribute to cortical direction selectivity. Using in vivo electrophysiology techniques, we examined LGN receptive field properties of visually naive female ferrets before and after exposure to 6 hours of motion stimuli in order to assess the effect of acute visual experience on LGN cell development. We found that acute experience with motion stimuli did not significantly affect the weak orientation or direction selectivity of LGN neurons. In addition, we found that neither latency nor sustainedness or transience of LGN neurons significantly changed with acute experience. These results suggest that the direction selectivity that emerges in cortex after acute experience is computed in cortex and cannot be explained by changes in LGN cells.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document