The timing of response onset and offset in macaque visual neurons

A single functional model accounts for the distinct properties of suppression in cortical area V1

Cross-orientation suppression and surround suppression have been extensively studied in primary visual cortex (V1). These two forms of suppression have some distinct properties which has led to the suggestion that they are generated by different underlying mechanisms. Furthermore, it has been suggested that mechanisms other than intracortical inhibition may be central to both forms of suppression. A simple computational model (PC/BC), in which intracortical inhibition is fundamental, is shown to simulate the distinct properties of cross-orientation and surround suppression. The same model has previously been shown to account for a large range of V1 response properties including orientation-tuning, spatial and temporal frequency tuning, facilitation and inhibition by flankers and textured surrounds as well as a range of other experimental results on cross-orientation suppression and surround suppression. The current results thus provide additional support for the PC/BC model of V1 and for the proposal that the diverse range of response properties observed in V1 neurons have a single computational explanation. Furthermore, these results demonstrate that current neurophysiological evidence is insufficient to discount intracortical inhibition as a central mechanism underlying both forms of suppression.

Decoding the activity of neuronal populations in macaque primary visual cortex

Visual function depends on the accuracy of signals carried by visual cortical neurons. Combining information across neurons should improve this accuracy because single neuron activity is variable. We examined the reliability of information inferred from populations of simultaneously recorded neurons in macaque primary visual cortex. We considered a decoding framework that computes the likelihood of visual stimuli from a pattern of population activity by linearly combining neuronal responses and tested this framework for orientation estimation and discrimination. We derived a simple parametric decoder assuming neuronal independence and a more sophisticated empirical decoder that learned the structure of the measured neuronal response distributions, including their correlated variability. The empirical decoder used the structure of these response distributions to perform better than its parametric variant, indicating that their structure contains critical information for sensory decoding. These results show how neuronal responses can best be used to inform perceptual decision-making.

High temporal precision for perceiving event offsets

Characterizing the temporal limits of the human visual system has long been a central goal of vision research. Spanning three centuries of research, temporal order judgments have been used to estimate the temporal precision of visual processing, with nearly all the research focusing on onset asynchrony discriminations. Recent neurophysiological work, however, demonstrated that neural latencies for stimulus offsets are shorter and less variable than those following event onsets, suggesting that event offsets might provide more reliable timing cues to the visual system than event onsets. Here, we tested this hypothesis by measuring psychophysical thresholds for discriminating onset and offset asynchronies for both stationary and moving stimuli. In three experiments, we showed that offset asynchrony thresholds were indeed consistently lower and were less affected by stimulus variations than onset asynchrony thresholds. These findings are consistent with neurophysiology and suggest a possible role of offset signals as reliable timing references for visual events.

Multisensory perceptual learning of temporal order: audiovisual learning transfers to vision but not audition

BACKGROUND

An outstanding question in sensory neuroscience is whether the perceived timing of events is mediated by a central supra-modal timing mechanism, or multiple modality-specific systems. We use a perceptual learning paradigm to address this question.

METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

Three groups were trained daily for 10 sessions on an auditory, a visual or a combined audiovisual temporal order judgment (TOJ). Groups were pre-tested on a range TOJ tasks within and between their group modality prior to learning so that transfer of any learning from the trained task could be measured by post-testing other tasks. Robust TOJ learning (reduced temporal order discrimination thresholds) occurred for all groups, although auditory learning (dichotic 500/2000 Hz tones) was slightly weaker than visual learning (lateralised grating patches). Crossmodal TOJs also displayed robust learning. Post-testing revealed that improvements in temporal resolution acquired during visual learning transferred within modality to other retinotopic locations and orientations, but not to auditory or crossmodal tasks. Auditory learning did not transfer to visual or crossmodal tasks, and neither did it transfer within audition to another frequency pair. In an interesting asymmetry, crossmodal learning transferred to all visual tasks but not to auditory tasks. Finally, in all conditions, learning to make TOJs for stimulus onsets did not transfer at all to discriminating temporal offsets. These data present a complex picture of timing processes.

CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE

The lack of transfer between unimodal groups indicates no central supramodal timing process for this task; however, the audiovisual-to-visual transfer cannot be explained without some form of sensory interaction. We propose that auditory learning occurred in frequency-tuned processes in the periphery, precluding interactions with more central visual and audiovisual timing processes. Functionally the patterns of featural transfer suggest that perceptual learning of temporal order may be optimised to object-centered rather than viewer-centered constraints.

Electrical source dynamics in three functional localizer paradigms

The visual cortex exhibits functional specialization that can be routinely demonstrated using hemodynamic measures like fMRI and PET. To understand the dynamic nature of cortical processes, however, source imaging with a high temporal resolution is necessary. Here, we asked how well distributed EEG source localization (LAURA) identifies functionally specialized visual processes. We tested three stimulus paradigms commonly used in fMRI with the aim to localize striate cortex, motion-sensitive areas, and face-sensitive areas. EEG source localization showed initial activations in striate and extra-striate areas at around 70ms after stimulus onset. These were quickly followed by extensive cortical, as well as subcortical activation. Functional motion and face-selective areas were localized with margins of below 2cm, at around 170 and 150ms, respectively. The results furthermore show for the first time that the C1 component has generators in the insula and frontal eye fields, but also in subcortical areas like the parahippocampus and the thalamus.

Complex dynamics of V1 population responses explained by a simple gain-control model

To understand sensory encoding and decoding, it is essential to characterize the dynamics of population responses in sensory cortical areas. Using voltage-sensitive dye imaging in awake, fixating monkeys, we obtained complete quantitative measurements of the spatiotemporal dynamics of V1 responses over the entire region activated by small, briefly presented stimuli. The responses exhibit several complex properties: they begin to rise approximately simultaneously over the entire active region, but reach their peak more rapidly at the center. However, at stimulus offset the responses fall simultaneously and at the same rate at all locations. Although response onset depends on stimulus contrast, both the peak spatial profile and the offset dynamics are independent of contrast. We show that these results are consistent with a simple population gain-control model that generalizes earlier single-neuron contrast gain-control models. This model provides valuable insight and is likely to be applicable to other brain areas.

Adaptive integration in the visual cortex by depressing recurrent cortical circuits

Neurons in the visual cortex receive a large amount of input from recurrent connections, yet the functional role of these connections remains unclear. Here we explore networks with strong recurrence in a computational model and show that short-term depression of the synapses in the recurrent loops implements an adaptive filter. This allows the visual system to respond reliably to deteriorated stimuli yet quickly to high-quality stimuli. For low-contrast stimuli, the model predicts long response latencies, whereas latencies are short for high-contrast stimuli. This is consistent with physiological data showing that in higher visual areas, latencies can increase more than 100 ms at low contrast compared to high contrast. Moreover, when presented with briefly flashed stimuli, the model predicts stereotypical responses that outlast the stimulus, again consistent with physiological findings. The adaptive properties of the model suggest that the abundant recurrent connections found in visual cortex serve to adapt the network's time constant in accordance with the stimulus and normalizes neuronal signals such that processing is as fast as possible while maintaining reliability.

Contrast induced changes in response latency depend on stimulus specificity

Neurones in visual cortex show increasing response latency with decreasing stimulus contrast. Neurophysiological recordings from neurones in inferior temporal cortex (IT) and the superior temporal sulcus (STS), show that the increment in response latency with decreasing stimulus contrast is considerably greater in higher visual areas than that seen in primary visual cortex. This suggests that the majority of the latency change is not retinal or V1 in origin, instead each cortical processing area adds latency at low contrast. I show that, as in earlier visual areas, response latency is more strongly dependent on stimulus contrast than stimulus identity. There is large variation in the extent to which response latency increases with decreasing stimulus contrast. I show that this between cell variability is, at least in part, related to the stimulus specificity of the neurones: the increase in response latency as stimulus contrast decreases is greater for neurones that respond to few stimuli compared to neurones that respond to many stimuli.

Estimating instantaneous irregularity of neuronal firing

Cortical neurons in vivo had been regarded as Poisson spike generators that convey no information other than the rate of random firing. Recently, using a metric for analyzing local variation of interspike intervals, researchers have found that individual neurons express specific patterns in generating spikes, which may symbolically be termed regular, random, or bursty, rather invariantly in time. In order to study the dynamics of firing patterns in greater detail, we propose here a Bayesian method for estimating firing irregularity and the firing rate simultaneously for a given spike sequence, and we implement an algorithm that may render the empirical Bayesian estimation practicable for data comprising a large number of spikes. Application of this method to electrophysiological data revealed a subtle correlation between the degree of firing irregularity and the firing rate for individual neurons. Irregularity of firing did not deviate greatly around the low degree of dependence on the firing rate and remained practically unchanged for individual neurons in the cortical areas V1 and MT, whereas it fluctuated greatly in the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus. This indicates the presence and absence of autocontrolling mechanisms for maintaining patterns of firing in the cortex and thalamus, respectively.

Predictive feedback can account for biphasic responses in the lateral geniculate nucleus

Biphasic neural response properties, where the optimal stimulus for driving a neural response changes from one stimulus pattern to the opposite stimulus pattern over short periods of time, have been described in several visual areas, including lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), primary visual cortex (V1), and middle temporal area (MT). We describe a hierarchical model of predictive coding and simulations that capture these temporal variations in neuronal response properties. We focus on the LGN-V1 circuit and find that after training on natural images the model exhibits the brain's LGN-V1 connectivity structure, in which the structure of V1 receptive fields is linked to the spatial alignment and properties of center-surround cells in the LGN. In addition, the spatio-temporal response profile of LGN model neurons is biphasic in structure, resembling the biphasic response structure of neurons in cat LGN. Moreover, the model displays a specific pattern of influence of feedback, where LGN receptive fields that are aligned over a simple cell receptive field zone of the same polarity decrease their responses while neurons of opposite polarity increase their responses with feedback. This phase-reversed pattern of influence was recently observed in neurophysiology. These results corroborate the idea that predictive feedback is a general coding strategy in the brain.

For many neurons in the early visual brain the optimal stimulation for driving a response changes from one stimulus pattern to the opposite stimulus pattern over short periods of time. For example, many neurons in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) respond to a bright stimulus initially but prefer a dark stimulus only 20 milliseconds later in time, and similar changes in response preference have been found for neurons in other areas. What would be the computational reason for these biphasic response dynamics? We describe a hierarchical model of predictive coding that explains these response properties. In the model, higher-level neurons attempt to predict their lower-level input, while lower-level neurons signal the difference between actual input and the higher-level predictions. In our simulations we focus on the LGN and area V1 and find that after training on natural images the layout of model connections resembles the brain's LGN-V1 connectivity structure. In addition, the responses of model LGN neurons are biphasic in time, resembling biphasic responses as found in neurophysiology. Moreover, the model displays a specific pattern of influence of feedback from higher-level areas that was recently observed in neurophysiology. These results corroborate the idea that predictive feedback is a general coding strategy in the brain.

Short-term memory for figure-ground organization in the visual cortex

Whether the visual system uses a buffer to store image information and the duration of that storage have been debated intensely in recent psychophysical studies. The long phases of stable perception of reversible figures suggest a memory that persists for seconds. But persistence of similar duration has not been found in signals of the visual cortex. Here, we show that figure-ground signals in the visual cortex can persist for a second or more after the removal of the figure-ground cues. When new figure-ground information is presented, the signals adjust rapidly, but when a figure display is changed to an ambiguous edge display, the signals decay slowly--a behavior that is characteristic of memory devices. Figure-ground signals represent the layout of objects in a scene, and we propose that a short-term memory for object layout is important in providing continuity of perception in the rapid stream of images flooding our eyes.

Neurons in the lateral intraparietal area create a priority map by the combination of disparate signals

Primates search for objects in the visual field with eye movements. We recorded the activity of neurons in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) in animals performing a visual search task in which they were free to move their eyes, and reported the results of the search with a hand movement. We distinguished three independent signals: (1) a visual signal describing the abrupt onset of a visual stimulus in the receptive field; (2) a saccadic signal predicting the monkey's saccadic reaction time independently of the nature of the stimulus; (3) a cognitive signal distinguishing between the search target and a distractor independently of the direction of the impending saccade. The cognitive signal became significant on average 27 ms after the saccadic signal but before the saccade was made. The three signals summed in a manner discernable at the level of the single neuron.

Occipital network for figure/ground organization

To study the cortical mechanism of figure/ground categorization in the human brain, we employed fMRI and the temporal-asynchrony paradigm. This paradigm is able to eliminate any differential activation for local stimulus features, and thus to identify only global perceptual interactions. Strong segmentation of the image into different spatial configurations was generated solely from temporal asynchronies between zones of homogeneous dynamic noise. The figure/ground configuration was a single geometric figure enclosed in a larger surround region. In a control condition, the figure/ground organization was eliminated by segmenting the noise field into many identical temporal-asynchrony stripes. The manipulation of the type of perceptual organization triggered dramatic reorganization in the cortical activation pattern. The figure/ground configuration generated suppression of the ground representation (limited to early retinotopic visual cortex, V1 and V2) and strong activation in the motion complex hMT+/V5+; conversely, both responses were abolished when the figure/ground organization was eliminated. These results suggest that figure/ground processing is mediated by top-down suppression of the ground representation in the earliest visual areas V1/V2 through a signal arising in the motion complex. We propose a model of a recurrent cortical architecture incorporating suppressive feedback that operates in a topographic manner, forming a figure/ground categorization network distinct from that for "pure" scene segmentation and thus underlying the perceptual organization of dynamic scenes into cognitively relevant components.

Perception of direction is not compensated for neural latency

Neural activity in the middle temporal area (MT) is strongly correlated with motion perception. I analyzed the temporal relationship between the representation of direction in MT and the actual direction of a stimulus that continuously changed direction. The representation in MT lagged the stimulus by 45 msec. Hence, as far as the perception of direction is concerned, the hypothesis of lag compensation can be rejected.

Saccadic facilitation in natural backgrounds

In visual systems with a fovea, only a small portion of the visual field can be analyzed with high accuracy. Saccadic eye movements shift that center of gaze around several times a second. Saccades have been characterized in great detail and depend critically on a number of visual properties of the stimuli. However, typical experiments have used bright spots on dark backgrounds, while our natural environment has a highly characteristic rich spatial structure. Here we show that the saccadic system, unlike the perceptual system, is able to compensate for the masking caused by structured backgrounds. Consequently, saccadic latencies in the context of natural backgrounds are much faster than unstructured backgrounds at equal levels of visibility. The results suggest that whenever a structured background acts to mask the visibility of the saccade target, it simultaneously preactivates saccadic circuitry and thus ensures a fast reaction to potentially critical stimuli that are difficult to detect in our environment.

Cellular osmolytes reduce lens epithelial cell death and alleviate cataract formation in galactosemic rats

PURPOSE

Many cataractogenic stresses also induce endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in lens epithelial cells (LECs), which appears to be one of the universal inducers of cell death. In galactosemic rats, activation of ER stress results in the activation of the unfolded protein response (UPR)-dependent death pathway, production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and cell death. All are induced and precede cataract formation. Cellular osmolytes such as 4-phenylbutyric acid (PBA), trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), and tauroursodeoxychoric acid (TUDCA) are known to suppress the induction of ER stress. We investigated whether these small molecules prevent cataract formation in galactose-fed rat lenses.

METHODS

Cultured LECs were treated with galactose and each cellular osmolyte. Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a 50% galactose chow for 15 days with or without cellular osmolyte treatment. Similarly, selenite was injected subcutaneously into rats with or without cellular osmolytes. Calcein AM and ethidium homodimer-1 (EthD) were used to detect live and dead cells, respectively. The cellular osmolytes, PBA, TMAO, and TUDCA were tested for their ability to suppress LEC death and cataract formation.

RESULTS

Cellular osmolytes rescued cultured human LECs which were treated with the ER stressors. We administered these osmolytes either orally or by injection into galactosemic Sprague-Dawley rats. These rats had significantly reduced LEC death and partially delayed hypermature cataract formation. Since the UPR was not activated in cultured LECs treated with selenite, we used the selenite nuclear cataract as a UPR-independent death pathway control. In selenite-induced nuclear cataract in rats, cellular osmolytes did not prevent LEC death and did not alleviate cataract formation.

CONCLUSIONS

These results further establish that ER stress and LEC death play a vital role in certain types of cataract formation. In addition, cellular osmolytes may be potential prophylactic drugs for some types of cataracts.

Fast visuomotor processing made faster by sound

Reaction time to a visual event can be dramatically reduced if the visual stimulus is accompanied by a startling sound. The mechanism may involve a motor programme being stored and triggered early by the sound. However, in a choice reaction task the required response is not known in advance, and so cannot be stored. In this case startling sound does not usually speed up the reaction and may even be detrimental to performance. Here we show that the reaction time of a special type of visually evoked movement can be substantially reduced by startling sound, even though the movement requires choice. The task involved stepping onto an illuminated target that sometimes moved mid-step left or right, requiring a foot trajectory adjustment. These adjustments occur at much shorter latency than conventional visuomotor reaction tasks and are thought to involve subcortical brain areas. The presence of the sound, which carried no information, shortened the already fast mean response time of 134 ms by approximately 20 ms. We attribute this to auditory-visual interaction since sound alone had no effect. Although we observed startle responses, the quickening effect was not contingent upon their presence. Given minimum motor and sensory conduction time, we estimate that the loud sound reduced the central visuomotor processing time by at least 30%.

Spatial versus temporal grouping in a modified Ternus display

The Ternus display can induce a percept of 'element motion' or 'group motion'. Conventionally, this has been attributed to two different motion processes, with different spatial and temporal ranges. In contrast, recent studies have emphasised spatial and temporal grouping principles as underlying the apparent motion percepts in the Ternus display. The present study explored effects of spatial and temporal grouping on the apparent motion percept in a novel Ternus display of oriented Gabor elements with no inter-frame interval. Each frame of this stimulus could be further divided into 'sub-frames', and the orientation of the carriers was changed across these sub-frames. In four experiments transitions were found between the motion percepts with changes in orientation across time (Experiment 1) and space (Experiment 2), and with a temporal offset in the orientation change of the outer element (Experiment 3) to the extent that group motion was not perceived even with large orientation changes over time that previously led to group motion (Experiment 4). Collectively, these results indicate that while spatial properties have an influence in determining the percept of the Ternus display, temporal properties also have a strong influence, and can override spatial grouping. However, these temporal effects cannot be attributed to spatio-temporal limits of low-level motion processes. Some aspects of the observed spatial grouping effects can be accounted for in terms of a modified association field, which may occur through connectivity of orientation selective units in V1. The temporal effects observed are considered in terms of temporal integration, the transitional value at a temporal offset of 40ms being remarkably similar to psychophysical and neurophysiological estimates of the peak temporal impulse response. These temporal responses could be detected at a higher level in the system, providing a basis for apparent motion perception.

A primer on motion visual evoked potentials

Motion visual evoked potentials (motion VEPs) have been used since the late 1960s to investigate the properties of human visual motion processing, and continue to be a popular tool with a possible future in clinical diagnosis. This review first provides a synopsis of the characteristics of motion VEPs and then summarizes important methodological aspects. A subsequent overview illustrates how motion VEPs have been applied to study basic functions of human motion processing and shows perspectives for their use as a diagnostic tool.

Temporal dynamics of figure-ground segregation in human vision

The segregation of figure from ground is arguably one of the most fundamental operations in human vision. Neural signals reflecting this operation appear in cortex as early as 50 ms and as late as 300 ms after presentation of a visual stimulus, but it is not known when these signals are used by the brain to construct the percepts of figure and ground. We used psychophysical reverse correlation to identify the temporal window for figure-ground signals in human perception and found it to lie within the range of 100-160 ms. Figure enhancement within this narrow temporal window was transient rather than sustained as may be expected from measurements in single neurons. These psychophysical results prompt and guide further electrophysiological studies.

Evidence for two interacting temporal channels in human visual processing

Previous studies have generally estimated that two independent channels underlie human temporal vision: one broad and low-pass, the other high, and band-pass. We confirm this with iso-oriented targets and masks. With orthogonal masks, the same high-frequency channel emerges but no low-pass channel is observed, indicating the high-frequency channel is orientation invariant, and possibly pre-cortical in origin. In contrast, orientation dependence for low frequencies suggests a cortical origin. Subsequent masking experiments using unoriented spatiotemporal-filtered noise demonstrated that high-frequency masks (>8Hz) suppress low-frequency targets (1 and 4Hz), but low frequencies do not suppress high frequencies. This asymmetry challenges the traditional assumption of channel independence. To explain this, we propose a two-channel model in which a non-orientation-selective high-frequency channel suppresses an orientation-tuned low-frequency channel. This asymmetry may: (i) equalise the over-representation of low temporal-frequency energy in natural stimuli (1/f power spectrum); (ii) contribute to motion deblurring.

Origins of cross-orientation suppression in the visual cortex

The response of a neuron in striate cortex to an optimally oriented stimulus is suppressed by a superimposed orthogonal stimulus. The neural mechanism underlying this cross-orientation suppression (COS) may arise from intracortical or subcortical processes or from both. Recent studies of the temporal frequency and adaptation properties of COS suggest that depression at thalamo-cortical synapses may be the principal mechanism. To examine the possible role of synaptic depression in relation to COS, we measured the recovery time course of COS. We find it too rapid to be explained by synaptic depression. We also studied potential subcortical processes by measuring single cell contrast response functions for a population of LGN neurons. In general, contrast saturation is a consistent property of LGN neurons. Combined with rectifying nonlinearities in the LGN and spike threshold nonlinearities in visual cortex, contrast saturation in the LGN can account for most of the COS that is observed in the visual cortex.

Temporal interactions in direction-selective complex cells of area 18 and the posteromedial lateral suprasylvian cortex (PMLS) of the cat

Temporal interactions in direction-sensitive complex cells in area 18 and the posteromedial lateral suprasylvian cortex (PMLS) were studied using a reverse correlation method. Reverse correlograms to combinations of two temporally separated motion directions were examined and compared in the two areas. A comparison to the first-order reverse correlograms allowed us to identify nonlinear suppression or facilitation due to pairwise combinations of motion directions. Results for area 18 and PMLS were very different. Area 18 showed a single type of nonlinear behavior: similar directions facilitated and opposite directions suppressed spike probability. This effect was most pronounced for motion steps that followed each other immediately and decreased with increasing delay between steps. In PMLS, the picture was much more diverse. Some cells exhibited nonlinear interactions, that were opposite to those in area 18 (facilitation for opposite directions and suppression for similar ones), while the majority did not show a systematic interaction profile. We conclude that nonlinear second-order reverse correlation characteristics reveal different functional properties, despite similarities in the first-order reverse correlation profiles. Directional interactions in time revealed optimal integration of similar directions in area 18, but motion opponency--at least in some cells--in PMLS.

Detection of motion onset and offset: reaction time and visual evoked potential analysis

Manual reaction time (RT) and visual evoked potentials (VEP) were measured in motion onset and offset detection tasks. A considerable homology was observed between the temporal structure of RTs and VEP intervals, provided that the change in motion was detected as soon as the VEP signal has reached critical threshold amplitude. Both manual reactions and VEP rise in latency as the velocity of the onset or offset motion decreases and were well approximated by the same negative power function with the exponent close to -2/3. This indicates that motion processing is normalised by subtracting the initial motion vector from ongoing motion. A comparison of the motion onset VEP signals in two different conditions, in one of which the observer was instructed to abstain from the reaction and in the other to indicate as fast as possible the beginning of the motion, contained accurate information about the manual response.

Visual evoked potentials for reversals of red–green gratings with different chromatic contrasts: Asymmetries with respect to isoluminance

Human visual evoked potentials (VEPs) were recorded for abrupt 6.25-Hz reversals of 2 c/deg square-wave gratings combining red–green contrast with different levels of luminance contrast. Response characteristics— amplitudes and peak latencies as a function of luminance contrast—were compared for four different pairs of red–green colors and an isochromatic yellow grating. For each of the red–green color pairs, the plots of VEP amplitudes and latencies were nonsymmetrical with respect to isoluminance. The amplitude dropped to a minimum within a region of rapid phase change, at a different contrast for each color pair but always at a luminance contrast for which the greener color had the higher luminance. When the contrast-response curve for each of the four red–green pairs was modeled by a simple |CL− CM| opponency of L- and M-cone contrast using a fixed CL/CMweighting ratio of about two, there was a close correspondence between the contrast giving a null in the modeled response and that giving a minimum in the VEP amplitude. So for the stimulus parameters applied here, the reversal VEP appeared to be dominated by L/M-opponent response contributions for which the signed CL/CM-cone weighting ratio was close to a value of minus two rather than to a value of minus one, which is characteristic of the psychophysical red–green detection mechanism and representative of CL/CMweighting ratios for precortical cells in the parvocellular pathway.

Large-Scale Visuomotor Integration in the Cerebral Cortex

Efficient visuomotor behavior depends on integrated processing by the visual and motor systems of the cerebral cortex. Yet, many previous cortical neurophysiology studies have examined the visual and motor modalities in isolation, largely ignoring questions of large-scale cross-modal integration. To address this issue, we analyzed event-related local field potentials simultaneously recorded from multiple visual, motor, and executive cortical sites in monkeys performing a visuomotor pattern discrimination task. The timing and cortical location of four aspects of event-related activities were examined: stimulus-evoked activation onset, stimulus-specific processing, stimulus category-specific processing, and response-specific processing. Activations appeared earliest in striate cortex and rapidly thereafter in other visual areas. Stimulus-specific processing began early in most visual cortical areas, some at activation onset. Early onset latencies were also observed in motor, premotor, and prefrontal areas, some as early as in striate cortex, but these early-activating frontal sites did not show early stimulus-specific processing. Response-specific processing began around 150 ms poststimulus in widespread cortical areas, suggesting that perceptual decision formation and response selection arose through concurrent processes of visual, motor, and executive areas. The occurrence of stimulus-specific and stimulus category-specific differences after the onset of response-specific processing suggests that sensory and motor stages of visuomotor processing overlapped in time.

Area MT Neurons Respond to Visual Motion Distant From Their Receptive Fields

Neurons in cortical area MT have localized receptive fields (RF) representing the contralateral hemifield and play an important role in processing visual motion. We recorded the activity of these neurons during a behavioral task in which two monkeys were required to discriminate and remember visual motion presented in the ipsilateral hemifield. During the task, the monkeys viewed two stimuli, sample and test, separated by a brief delay and reported whether they contained motion in the same or in opposite directions. Fifty to 70% of MT neurons were activated by the motion stimuli presented in the ipsilateral hemifield at locations far removed from their classical receptive fields. These responses were in the form of excitation or suppression and were delayed relative to conventional MT responses. Both excitatory and suppressive responses were direction selective, but the nature and the time course of their directionality differed from the conventional excitatory responses recorded with stimuli in the RF. Direction selectivity of the excitatory remote response was transient and early, whereas the suppressive response developed later and persisted after stimulus offset. The presence or absence of these unusual responses on error trials, as well as their magnitude, was affected by the behavioral significance of stimuli used in the task. We hypothesize that these responses represent top-down signals from brain region(s) accessing information about stimuli in the entire visual field and about the behavioral state of the animal. The recruitment of neurons in the opposite hemisphere during processing of behaviorally relevant visual signals reveals a mechanism by which sensory processing can be affected by cognitive task demands.

Motion adaptation: net duration matters, not continuousness

Motion processing is strongly adaptable. Adaptation strength generally increases with motion duration. Little is known, though, about the effect of motion onsets and offsets, which might be relevant if adaptation is not based on motion duration per se, but on the recent cumulated activity of motion-processing mechanisms. Thus, we presented intermittent motion with three different onset rates for adaptation. The duty cycle was kept constant at 33% while the rate of motion onsets was either 1.4, 2.8, or 5.6 per second. Stationary stimuli and continuous motion were used as reference conditions. The amplitude of the N2 component of human motion visual evoked potentials was used to quantify adaptation. All three onset rates induced virtually identical amounts of adaptation (occipitally, P=0.71; occipito-temporally, P=0.27), suggesting that the continuousness of the stimulus does not play an important role in motion adaptation. This was confirmed by measuring the motion aftereffect psychophysically.

Event-related potentials show configural specificity of global form processing

Glass patterns are a type of moiré created when a random-dot field is overlaid with a rotated, translated or dilated copy. The overall form of the moiré cannot be detected using local processing mechanisms, and because of this, Glass patterns are useful probes of global form processing. Here, we use event-related potentials to show that certain global organizations (concentric structure created by rotation and radial structure produced by dilation) produce much larger brain responses than others (linear structure created by translation). The results are consistent with the existence of specialized form processing mechanisms in the extrastriate cortex.

Dynamics of cross- and iso-surround facilitation suggest distinct mechanisms

Psychophysical studies have found that contrast sensitivity is enhanced by spatially separated flanking stimuli that are collinear with a foveal target. Considerable uncertainty remains, however, about the facilitative effect of other surround configurations. We investigated this by systematically manipulating relative flanker position (target end-zones or side-bands) and orientation (iso-oriented or ortho-oriented targets and flankers) at multiple target-flanker separations. We also examined the effect of a temporal dimension (exposure duration) across combinations of these spatial parameters. We found facilitation in the context of all surround configurations tested, but not at all separations and exposure durations. Interestingly, although the minimum exposure required to induce facilitation (facilitative delay) increased as a function of separation for all configurations (averaged across subjects), the rate at which this occurred depended, not upon flanker position or orientation relative to the target, but the alignment of the flankers relative to each other. By transforming these slopes into striate transmission speeds we estimate that: (i) collinear flanker facilitation matches the slow conduction velocities of long-range (LR) horizontal striate connections and (ii) non-collinear, parallel flanker facilitation correlates with the much faster extra-striate feedforward/feedback connections.

Internal Model of Gravity for Hand Interception: Parametric Adaptation to Zero-Gravity Visual Targets on Earth

Internal model is a neural mechanism that mimics the dynamics of an object for sensory motor or cognitive functions. Recent research focuses on the issue of whether multiple internal models are learned and switched to cope with a variety of conditions, or single general models are adapted by tuning the parameters. Here we addressed this issue by investigating how the manual interception of a moving target changes with changes of the visual environment. In our paradigm, a virtual target moves vertically downward on a screen with different laws of motion. Subjects are asked to punch a hidden ball that arrives in synchrony with the visual target. By using several different protocols, we systematically found that subjects do not develop a new internal model appropriate for constant speed targets, but they use the default gravity model and reduce the central processing time. The results imply that adaptation to zero-gravity targets involves a compression of temporal processing through the cortical and subcortical regions interconnected with the vestibular cortex, which has previously been shown to be the site of storage of the internal model of gravity.

Chronometry of visual responses in frontal eye field, supplementary eye field, and anterior cingulate cortex

The latency and variability of latency of single-unit responses to identical visual stimulation were measured in the frontal eye field (FEF), supplementary eye field (SEF), and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) of macaque monkeys performing visually guided saccades. The mean visual response latency was significantly shorter in FEF (64 ms) than in SEF (81 ms) or ACC (100 ms), and latency values determined by four methods agreed. The latency variability of the visual response was respectively less in FEF (21 ms) than in SEF (37 ms) or ACC (41 ms). Latency, variability of latency, and magnitude of the visual responses were correlated within FEF and SEF but not ACC. These characteristics of the visual response are consistent with the degree of convergence of visual afferents to these areas and constrain hypotheses about visual processing in the frontal lobe.

Instructive signals for motor learning from visual cortical area MT

Sensory error signals have long been proposed to act as instructive signals to guide motor learning. Here we have exploited the temporal specificity of learning in smooth pursuit eye movements and the well-defined anatomical structure of the neural circuit for pursuit to identify a part of sensory cortex that provides instructive signals for motor learning in monkeys. We show that electrical microstimulation in the motion-sensitive middle temporal area (MT) of extrastriate visual cortex instructs learning in smooth eye movements in a way that closely mimics the learning instructed by real visual motion. We conclude that MT provides instructive signals for motor learning in smooth pursuit eye movements under natural conditions, suggesting a similar role for sensory cortices in many kinds of learned behaviors.

Microsecond precision of phase delay in the auditory system of the barn owl

The auditory system encodes time with sub-millisecond accuracy. To shed new light on the basic mechanism underlying this precise temporal neuronal coding, we analyzed the neurophonic potential, a characteristic multiunit response, in the barn owl's nucleus laminaris. We report here that the relative time measure of phase delay is robust against changes in sound level, with a precision sharper than 20 micros. Absolute measures of delay, such as group delay or signal-front delay, had much greater temporal jitter, for example due to their strong dependence on sound level. Our findings support the hypothesis that phase delay underlies the sub-millisecond precision of the representation of interaural time difference needed for sound localization.

No doubt about offset latency

Neuronal response latency usually refers to the time between the presentation of a visual stimulus and the elevation in firing rate that follows. Expanding on this idea, the concept of response offset latency refers to the time between the removal of a stimulus (or its replacement with one that is less effective) and the resulting decline in firing rate. The initial observation that offset latency is usually shorter than onset latency (Bair et al., 2002) has been called into question on the basis of the pulsatile nature of visual stimuli presented on a CRT (Gawne & Woods, 2003). Here, a counter argument is presented in support of the results of Bair et al., 2002.

Dynamics of motion signaling by neurons in macaque area MT

Most neurons in macaque area MT are selective for the direction of stimulus motion. By comparing direction selectivity for gratings and plaids, we classified MT neurons as pattern direction selective (PDS) or component direction selective (CDS). We compared the time course of responses in CDS and PDS neurons in opiate-anesthetized macaques, using a rapid pseudorandom sequence of gratings and plaids that moved in different directions. On average, responses began 6 ms earlier in CDS neurons than in PDS neurons. More importantly, the pattern-selective responses of PDS neurons did not reach their fully selective state until 50-75 ms after the responses of CDS neurons had stabilized. The population motion response of MT is therefore initially dominated by component motion signals, and does not completely represent pattern motion until substantially later. The circuits that compute pattern motion take more time to finish their work than those signaling component motion.

A model of visual backward masking

When two successive stimuli are presented within 0-200 ms intervals, the recognition of the first stimulus (the target) can be impaired by the second (the mask). This backward masking phenomenon has a form called metacontrast masking where the target and the mask are in close spatial proximity but not overlapping. In that case, the masking effect is strongest for interval of 60-100 ms. To understand this behaviour, activity propagation in a feedforward network of leaky integrate and fire neurons is investigated. It is found that, if neurons have a selectivity similar to that of V1 simple cells, activity decays layer after layer and ceases to propagate. To combat this, a local amplification mechanism is included in the model, using excitatory lateral connections, which turn out to support prolonged self-sustained activity. Masking is assumed to arise from local competition between representations recruited by the target and the mask. This tends to interrupt sustained firing, while prolonged retinal input tends to re-initiate it. Thus, masking causes a maximal reduction of the duration of the cortical response to the target towards the end of the retinal response. This duration exhibits the typical U-shape of the masking curve. In this model, masking does not alter the propagation of the onset of the response to the target, thus preserving response reaction times and enabling unconscious priming phenomena.

Temporal dynamics of direction tuning in motion-sensitive macaque area MT

We studied the temporal dynamics of motion direction sensitivity in macaque area MT using a motion reverse correlation paradigm. Stimuli consisted of a random sequence of motion steps in eight different directions. Cross-correlating the stimulus with the resulting neural activity reveals the temporal dynamics of direction selectivity. The temporal dynamics of direction selectivity at the preferred speed showed two phases along the time axis: one phase corresponding to an increase in probability for the preferred direction at short latencies and a second phase corresponding to a decrease in probability for the preferred direction at longer latencies. The strength of this biphasic behavior varied between neurons from weak to very strong and was uniformly distributed. Strong biphasic behavior suggests optimal responses for motion steps in the antipreferred direction followed by a motion step in the preferred direction. Correlating spikes to combinations of motion directions corroborates this distinction. The optimal combination for weakly biphasic cells consists of successive steps in the preferred direction, whereas for strongly biphasic cells, it is a reversal of directions. Comparing reverse correlograms to combinations of stimuli to predictions based on correlograms for individual directions revealed several nonlinear effects. Correlations for successive presentations of preferred directions were smaller than predicted, which could be explained by a static nonlinearity (saturation). Correlations to pairs of (nearly) opposite directions were larger than predicted. These results show that MT neurons are generally more responsive when sudden changes in motion directions occur, irrespective of the preferred direction of the neurons. The latter nonlinearities cannot be explained by a simple static nonlinearity at the output of the neuron, but most likely reflect network interactions.

Derivation and analysis of basic computational operations of thalamocortical circuits

Shared anatomical and physiological features of primary, secondary, tertiary, polysensory, and associational neocortical areas are used to formulate a novel extended hypothesis of thalamocortical circuit operation. A simplified anatomically based model of topographically and nontopographically projecting ("core" and "matrix") thalamic nuclei, and their differential connections with superficial, middle, and deep neocortical laminae, is described. Synapses in the model are activated and potentiated according to physiologically based rules. Features incorporated into the models include differential time courses of excitatory versus inhibitory postsynaptic potentials, differential axonal arborization of pyramidal cells versus interneurons, and different laminar afferent and projection patterns. Observation of the model's responses to static and time-varying inputs indicates that topographic "core" circuits operate to organize stored memories into natural similarity-based hierarchies, whereas diffuse "matrix" circuits give rise to efficient storage of time-varying input into retrievable sequence chains. Examination of these operations shows their relationships with well-studied algorithms for related functions, including categorization via hierarchical clustering, and sequential storage via hash- or scatter-storage. Analysis demonstrates that the derived thalamocortical algorithms exhibit desirable efficiency, scaling, and space and time cost characteristics. Implications of the hypotheses for central issues of perceptual reaction times and memory capacity are discussed. It is conjectured that the derived functions are fundamental building blocks recurrent throughout the neocortex, which, through combination, gives rise to powerful perceptual, motor, and cognitive mechanisms.

Video-rate and continuous visual stimuli do not produce equivalent response timings in visual cortical neurons

Video cathode ray tube (CRT) technology has proven to be extremely valuable for performing research in the visual system. However, the image on a CRT monitor is not constant, but consists of a series of brief pulses. This has implications for any study that explores the responses of neurons in the visual system on short time scales. In particular, there is no unambiguous time point at which a visual stimulus presented via CRT may be said to have ended. Recordings from single units in visual cortical area V1 of an awake primate demonstrate that, when studying changes in response timing on the order of 10 ms or less, stimuli delivered at video frame rates do not duplicate the effects seen with stimuli that have continuous functions of luminance versus time. Additionally, there does not seem to be any clear method of comparing the results obtained with video-rate stimuli with results obtained with continuous-time stimuli that holds for all conditions. These effects are especially critical when exploring the time course of the neuronal responses to the ending of a visual stimulus (off-response). Our findings cast doubt upon the recently reported result that off-responses have consistently shorter latencies than on-responses.

A paradox of temporal perception revealed by a stimulus oscillating in colour and orientation

Psychophysical experiments with stimuli oscillating concurrently in colour and orientation revealed an apparently paradoxical dissociation between the perceived simultaneity of stimulus changes and the perceptual pairing of the events demarked by those changes. When subjects were required to report whether changes in colour and orientation were simultaneous, judgements were generally accurate within +/-10 ms. When subjects were required to report which colour was paired predominantly with which orientation, judgements showed a systematic temporal bias of up to 50 ms in favour of colour. This dissociation between different temporal judgements concerning the same stimulus sequence is not predicted by any of the current models of binding in conscious vision. We propose an account of these data based on the temporal response properties of colour- and orientation-selective model neurons such that the perceived pairing of visual attributes is modelled as the cross-correlation of time-varying neural response profiles and thus reflects both neuronal latencies and the rate of rapid adaptation rather than simply the temporal pattern of responses to stimulus transitions.

Representation of action sequence boundaries by macaque prefrontal cortical neurons

Complex biological systems such as human language and the genetic code are characterized by explicit markers at the beginning and end of functional sequences. We report here that macaque prefrontal cortical neurons exhibit phasic peaks of spike activity that occur at the beginning and endpoint of sequential oculomotor saccade performance and have the properties of dynamic start- and end-state encoders accompanying responses to sequential actions. Sequence bounding may thus reflect a general mechanism for encoding biological information.

Time course and time-distance relationships for surround suppression in macaque V1 neurons

Iso-orientation surround suppression is a powerful form of visual contextual modulation in which a stimulus of the preferred orientation of a neuron placed outside the classical receptive field (CRF) of the neuron suppresses the response to stimuli within the CRF. This suppression is most often attributed to orientation-tuned signals that propagate laterally across the cortex, activating local inhibition. By studying the temporal properties of surround suppression, we have uncovered characteristics that challenge standard notions of surround suppression. We found that the latency of suppression depended on its strength. Across cells, strong suppression arrived on average 30 msec earlier than weak suppression, and suppression sometimes arrived faster than the excitatory CRF response. We compared the relative latency of CRF response onset and offset with the relative latency of suppression onset and offset. Response onset was delayed relative to response offset in the CRF but not in the surround. This is not the expected result if neurons targeted by suppression are like those that generate it. We examined the time course of suppression as a function of distance of the surround stimulus from the CRF and found that suppression was predominantly sustained for nearby stimuli and predominantly transient for distant stimuli. By comparing the latency of suppression for nearby and distant stimuli, we found that orientation-tuned suppression could effectively propagate across 6 - 8 mm of cortex at approximately 1 m/sec. This is considerably faster than expected for horizontal cortical connections previously implicated in surround suppression. We offer refinements to circuits for surround suppression that account for these results and describe how feedback from cells with large CRFs can account for the rapid propagation of suppression within V1.

Adaptation characteristics of steady-state motion visual evoked potentials

OBJECTIVE

Motion visual evoked potentials (motion VEPs) are used in clinical diagnosis and basic research. Employing steady-state rather than the usual transient motion VEPs simplifies statistical evaluation and might drastically reduce examination durations. Protocols for recording transient motion-onset VEPs usually involve fairly long recovery intervals between trials to avoid neural adaptation. This is not feasible for steady-state VEPs. We investigated how adaptation affects the steady-state motion VEP.

METHODS

Oscillatory (13.3rev/s) and continuous uni-directional random-dot motion served as adaptation stimuli. Steady-state motion VEPs and, for comparison, transient motion VEPs were recorded.

RESULTS

In the first experiment, we investigated how adaptation affects the recordings. Contrary to our expectation, we did not find any sizable effect. However, there was a large inter-individual variability in steady-state amplitude and no correlation across subjects between transient and steady-state amplitude. In the second experiment, we confirmed that the steady-state VEP reflects veridical motion processing by assessing its susceptibility to uni-directional pre-adaptation.

CONCLUSIONS

Taken together, the results suggest that steady-state motion VEPs provide a fast method of recording motion responses without suffering from adaptation, but at the expense of inter-individual reproducibility.

The motion reverse correlation (MRC) method: a linear systems approach in the motion domain

We introduce the motion reverse correlation method (MRC), a novel stimulus paradigm based on a random sequence of motion impulses. The method is tailored to investigate the spatio-temporal dynamics of motion selectivity in cells responding to moving random dot patterns. Effectiveness of the MRC method is illustrated with results obtained from recordings in both anesthetized cats and an awake, fixating macaque monkey. Motion tuning functions are computed by reverse correlating the response of single cells with a rapid sequence of displacements of a random pixel array (RPA). Significant correlations between the cell's responses and various aspects of stimulus motion are obtained at high temporal resolution. These correlations provide a detailed description of the temporal dynamics of, for example, direction tuning and velocity tuning. In addition, with a spatial array of independently moving RPAs, the MRC method can be used to measure spatial as well as temporal receptive field properties. We demonstrate that MRC serves as a powerful and time-efficient tool for quantifying receptive field properties of motion selective cells that yields temporal information that cannot be derived from existing methods.

Long-term voltage-sensitive dye imaging reveals cortical dynamics in behaving monkeys

A novel method of chronic optical imaging based on new voltage-sensitive dyes (VSDs) was developed to facilitate the explorations of the spatial and temporal patterns underlying higher cognitive functions in the neocortex of behaving monkeys. Using this system, we were able to explore cortical dynamics, with high spatial and temporal resolution, over period of <or=1 yr from the same patch of cortex. The visual cortices of trained macaques were stained one to three times a week, and immediately after each staining session, the monkey started to perform the behavioral task, while the primary and secondary visual areas (V1 and V2) were imaged with a fast optical imaging system. Long-term repeated VSD imaging (VSDI) from the same cortical area did not disrupt the normal cortical architecture as confirmed repeatedly by optical imaging based on intrinsic signals. The spatial patterns of functional maps obtained by VSDI were essentially identical to those obtained from the same patch of cortex by imaging based on intrinsic signals. On comparing the relative amplitudes of the evoked signals and differential map obtained using these two different imaging methodologies, we found that VSDI emphasizes subthreshold activity more than imaging based on intrinsic signals, that emphasized more spiking activity. The latency of the VSD-evoked response in V1 ranged from 46 to 68 ms in the different monkeys. The amplitude of the V2 response was only 20-60% of that in V1. As expected from the anatomy, the retinotopic responses to local visual stimuli spread laterally across the cortical surface at a spreading velocity of 0.15-0.19 m/s over a larger area than that expected by the classical magnification factor, reaching its maximal anisotropic spatial extent within approximately 40 ms. We correlated the observed dynamics of cortical activation patterns with the monkey's saccadic eye movements and found that due to the slow offset of the cortical response relative to its onset, there was a short period of simultaneous activation of two distinct patches of cortex following a saccade to the visual stimulus. We also found that a saccade to a small stimulus was followed by direct transient activation of a cortical region in areas of V1 and V2, located retinotopically within the saccadic trajectory.