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Pan Y, Popov T, Frisson S, Jensen O. Saccades are locked to the phase of alpha oscillations during natural reading. PLoS Biol 2023; 21:e3001968. [PMID: 36649331 PMCID: PMC9882905 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001968] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/20/2022] [Revised: 01/27/2023] [Accepted: 12/16/2022] [Indexed: 01/18/2023] Open
Abstract
We saccade 3 to 5 times per second when reading. However, little is known about the neuronal mechanisms coordinating the oculomotor and visual systems during such rapid processing. Here, we ask if brain oscillations play a role in the temporal coordination of the visuomotor integration. We simultaneously acquired MEG and eye-tracking data while participants read sentences silently. Every sentence was embedded with a target word of either high or low lexical frequency. Our key finding demonstrated that saccade onsets were locked to the phase of alpha oscillations (8 to 13 Hz), and in particular, for saccades towards low frequency words. Source modelling demonstrated that the alpha oscillations to which the saccades were locked, were generated in the right-visual motor cortex (BA 7). Our findings suggest that the alpha oscillations serve to time the processing between the oculomotor and visual systems during natural reading, and that this coordination becomes more pronounced for demanding words.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yali Pan
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
| | - Tzvetan Popov
- Methods of Plasticity Research, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Steven Frisson
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
| | - Ole Jensen
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
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2
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Csorba BA, Krause MR, Zanos TP, Pack CC. Long-range cortical synchronization supports abrupt visual learning. Curr Biol 2022; 32:2467-2479.e4. [PMID: 35523181 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.04.029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/24/2021] [Revised: 03/08/2022] [Accepted: 04/12/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Visual plasticity declines sharply after the critical period, yet we easily learn to recognize new faces and places, even as adults. Such learning is often characterized by a "moment of insight," an abrupt and dramatic improvement in recognition. The mechanisms that support abrupt learning are unknown, but one hypothesis is that they involve changes in synchronization between brain regions. To test this hypothesis, we used a behavioral task in which non-human primates rapidly learned to recognize novel images and to associate them with specific responses. Simultaneous recordings from inferotemporal and prefrontal cortices revealed a transient synchronization of neural activity between these areas that peaked around the moment of insight. Synchronization was strongest between inferotemporal sites that encoded images and reward-sensitive prefrontal sites. Moreover, its magnitude intensified gradually over image exposures, suggesting that abrupt learning is the culmination of a search for informative signals within a circuit linking sensory information to task demands.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bennett A Csorba
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada.
| | - Matthew R Krause
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada
| | | | - Christopher C Pack
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada
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3
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Jensen O, Pan Y, Frisson S, Wang L. An oscillatory pipelining mechanism supporting previewing during visual exploration and reading. Trends Cogn Sci 2021; 25:1033-1044. [PMID: 34544653 PMCID: PMC7615059 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.08.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2021] [Revised: 08/24/2021] [Accepted: 08/25/2021] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Humans have a remarkable ability to efficiently explore visual scenes and text using eye movements. Humans typically make eye movements (saccades) every ~250 ms. Since saccade initiation and execution take 100 ms, this leaves only ~150 ms to recognize the fixated object (or word) while simultaneously previewing candidates for the next saccade goal. We propose a pipelining mechanism where serial processing occurs within a specific brain region, whereas parallel processing occurs across different brain regions. The mechanism is timed by alpha oscillations that coordinate the saccades, visual recognition, and previewing in the cortical hierarchy. Consequently, the neuronal mechanism supporting natural vision and saccades must be studied in unison to uncover the brain mechanisms supporting visual exploration and reading.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ole Jensen
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
| | - Yali Pan
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
| | - Steven Frisson
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
| | - Lin Wang
- Department of Psychiatry and the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA; Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA
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O'Reilly RC, Russin JL, Zolfaghar M, Rohrlich J. Deep Predictive Learning in Neocortex and Pulvinar. J Cogn Neurosci 2021; 33:1158-1196. [PMID: 34428793 PMCID: PMC10164227 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01708] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/04/2023]
Abstract
How do humans learn from raw sensory experience? Throughout life, but most obviously in infancy, we learn without explicit instruction. We propose a detailed biological mechanism for the widely embraced idea that learning is driven by the differences between predictions and actual outcomes (i.e., predictive error-driven learning). Specifically, numerous weak projections into the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus generate top-down predictions, and sparse driver inputs from lower areas supply the actual outcome, originating in Layer 5 intrinsic bursting neurons. Thus, the outcome representation is only briefly activated, roughly every 100 msec (i.e., 10 Hz, alpha), resulting in a temporal difference error signal, which drives local synaptic changes throughout the neocortex. This results in a biologically plausible form of error backpropagation learning. We implemented these mechanisms in a large-scale model of the visual system and found that the simulated inferotemporal pathway learns to systematically categorize 3-D objects according to invariant shape properties, based solely on predictive learning from raw visual inputs. These categories match human judgments on the same stimuli and are consistent with neural representations in inferotemporal cortex in primates.
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Neupane S, Guitton D, Pack CC. Perisaccadic remapping: What? How? Why? Rev Neurosci 2020; 31:505-520. [PMID: 32242834 DOI: 10.1515/revneuro-2019-0097] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/15/2019] [Accepted: 12/31/2019] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
About 25 years ago, the discovery of receptive field (RF) remapping in the parietal cortex of nonhuman primates revealed that visual RFs, widely assumed to have a fixed retinotopic organization, can change position before every saccade. Measuring such changes can be deceptively difficult. As a result, studies that followed have generated a fascinating but somewhat confusing picture of the phenomenon. In this review, we describe how observations of RF remapping depend on the spatial and temporal sampling of visual RFs and saccade directions. Further, we summarize some of the theories of how remapping might occur in neural circuitry. Finally, based on neurophysiological and psychophysical observations, we discuss the ways in which remapping information might facilitate computations in downstream brain areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sujaya Neupane
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Daniel Guitton
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A2B4, Canada
| | - Christopher C Pack
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A2B4, Canada
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6
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Abstract
Most people easily learn to recognize new faces and places, and with more extensive practice they can become experts at visual tasks as complex as radiological diagnosis and action video games. Such perceptual plasticity has been thoroughly studied in the context of training paradigms that require constant fixation. In contrast, when observers learn under more natural conditions, they make frequent saccadic eye movements. Here we show that such eye movements can play an important role in visual learning. Observers performed a task in which they executed a saccade while discriminating the motion of a cued visual stimulus. Additional stimuli, presented simultaneously with the cued one, permitted an assessment of the perceptual integration of information across visual space. Consistent with previous results on perisaccadic remapping [M. Szinte, D. Jonikaitis, M. Rolfs, P. Cavanagh, H. Deubel, J. Neurophysiol. 116, 1592-1602 (2016)], most observers preferentially integrated information from locations representing the presaccadic and postsaccadic retinal positions of the cue. With extensive training on the saccade task, these observers gradually acquired the ability to perform similar motion integration without making eye movements. Importantly, the newly acquired pattern of spatial integration was determined by the metrics of the saccades made during training. These results suggest that oculomotor influences on visual processing, long thought to subserve the function of perceptual stability, also play a role in visual plasticity.
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Alamia A, VanRullen R. Alpha oscillations and traveling waves: Signatures of predictive coding? PLoS Biol 2019; 17:e3000487. [PMID: 31581198 PMCID: PMC6776260 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000487] [Citation(s) in RCA: 65] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2019] [Accepted: 08/30/2019] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Predictive coding is a key mechanism to understand the computational processes underlying brain functioning: in a hierarchical network, higher levels predict the activity of lower levels, and the unexplained residuals (i.e., prediction errors) are passed back to higher layers. Because of its recursive nature, we wondered whether predictive coding could be related to brain oscillatory dynamics. First, we show that a simple 2-level predictive coding model of visual cortex, with physiological communication delays between levels, naturally gives rise to alpha-band rhythms, similar to experimental observations. Then, we demonstrate that a multilevel version of the same model can explain the occurrence of oscillatory traveling waves across levels, both forward (during visual stimulation) and backward (during rest). Remarkably, the predictions of our model are matched by the analysis of 2 independent electroencephalography (EEG) datasets, in which we observed oscillatory traveling waves in both directions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Alamia
- Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition (CerCo), CNRS, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
| | - Rufin VanRullen
- Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition (CerCo), CNRS, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
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Benedetto A, Morrone MC, Tomassini A. The Common Rhythm of Action and Perception. J Cogn Neurosci 2019; 32:187-200. [PMID: 31210564 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01436] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Research in the last decade has undermined the idea of perception as a continuous process, providing strong empirical support for its rhythmic modulation. More recently, it has been revealed that the ongoing motor processes influence the rhythmic sampling of sensory information. In this review, we will focus on a growing body of evidence suggesting that oscillation-based mechanisms may structure the dynamic interplay between the motor and sensory system and provide a unified temporal frame for their effective coordination. We will describe neurophysiological data, primarily collected in animals, showing phase-locking of neuronal oscillations to the onset of (eye) movements. These data are complemented by novel evidence in humans, which demonstrate the behavioral relevance of these oscillatory modulations and their domain-general nature. Finally, we will discuss the possible implications of these modulations for action-perception coupling mechanisms.
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Abstract
Our vision depends upon shifting our high-resolution fovea to objects of interest in the visual field. Each saccade displaces the image on the retina, which should produce a chaotic scene with jerks occurring several times per second. It does not. This review examines how an internal signal in the primate brain (a corollary discharge) contributes to visual continuity across saccades. The article begins with a review of evidence for a corollary discharge in the monkey and evidence from inactivation experiments that it contributes to perception. The next section examines a specific neuronal mechanism for visual continuity, based on corollary discharge that is referred to as visual remapping. Both the basic characteristics of this anticipatory remapping and the factors that control it are enumerated. The last section considers hypotheses relating remapping to the perceived visual continuity across saccades, including remapping's contribution to perceived visual stability across saccades.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert H Wurtz
- Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-4435, USA;
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Szinte M, Jonikaitis D, Rangelov D, Deubel H. Pre-saccadic remapping relies on dynamics of spatial attention. eLife 2018; 7:37598. [PMID: 30596475 PMCID: PMC6328271 DOI: 10.7554/elife.37598] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2018] [Accepted: 12/30/2018] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Each saccade shifts the projections of the visual scene on the retina. It has been proposed that the receptive fields of neurons in oculomotor areas are predictively remapped to account for these shifts. While remapping of the whole visual scene seems prohibitively complex, selection by attention may limit these processes to a subset of attended locations. Because attentional selection consumes time, remapping of attended locations should evolve in time, too. In our study, we cued a spatial location by presenting an attention-capturing cue at different times before a saccade and constructed maps of attentional allocation across the visual field. We observed no remapping of attention when the cue appeared shortly before saccade. In contrast, when the cue appeared sufficiently early before saccade, attentional resources were reallocated precisely to the remapped location. Our results show that pre-saccadic remapping takes time to develop suggesting that it relies on the spatial and temporal dynamics of spatial attention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martin Szinte
- Department of Cognitive Psychology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Donatas Jonikaitis
- Department of Neurobiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
| | - Dragan Rangelov
- Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
| | - Heiner Deubel
- Allgemeine und Experimentelle Psychologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
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Palva S, Palva JM. Roles of Brain Criticality and Multiscale Oscillations in Temporal Predictions for Sensorimotor Processing. Trends Neurosci 2018; 41:729-743. [DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2018.08.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 68] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2018] [Revised: 08/09/2018] [Accepted: 08/09/2018] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
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