Visual adaptation and novelty responses in the superior colliculus

Short-latency preference for faces in primate superior colliculus depends on visual cortex

Face processing is fundamental to primates and has been extensively studied in higher-order visual cortex. Here, we report that visual neurons in the midbrain superior colliculus (SC) of macaque monkeys display a preference for images of faces. This preference emerges within 40 ms of stimulus onset-well before "face patches" in visual cortex-and, at the population level, can be used to distinguish faces from other visual objects with accuracies of ∼80%. This short-latency face preference in SC depends on signals routed through early visual cortex because inactivating the lateral geniculate nucleus, the key relay from retina to cortex, virtually eliminates visual responses in SC, including face-related activity. These results reveal an unexpected circuit in the primate visual system for rapidly detecting faces in the periphery, complementing the higher-order areas needed for recognizing individual faces.

Neural mechanisms for the localization of unexpected external motion

To localize objects during active sensing, animals must differentiate stimuli caused by volitional movement from real-world object motion. To determine a neural basis for this ability, we examined the mouse superior colliculus (SC), which contains multiple egocentric maps of sensorimotor space. By placing mice in a whisker-guided virtual reality, we discovered a rapidly adapting tactile response that transiently emerged during externally generated gains in whisker contact. Responses to self-generated touch that matched self-generated history were significantly attenuated, revealing that transient response magnitude is controlled by sensorimotor predictions. The magnitude of the transient response gradually decreased with repetitions in external motion, revealing a slow habituation based on external history. The direction of external motion was accurately encoded in the firing rates of transiently responsive neurons. These data reveal that whisker-specific adaptation and sensorimotor predictions in SC neurons enhance the localization of unexpected, externally generated changes in tactile space.

Short-latency preference for faces in the primate superior colliculus

Face processing is fundamental to primates and has been extensively studied in higher-order visual cortex. Here we report that visual neurons in the midbrain superior colliculus (SC) display a preference for faces, that the preference emerges within 50ms of stimulus onset - well before "face patches" in visual cortex - and that this activity can distinguish faces from other visual objects with accuracies of ~80%. This short-latency preference in SC depends on signals routed through early visual cortex, because inactivating the lateral geniculate nucleus, the key relay from retina to cortex, virtually eliminates visual responses in SC, including face-related activity. These results reveal an unexpected circuit in the primate visual system for rapidly detecting faces in the periphery, complementing the higher-order areas needed for recognizing individual faces.

The reduction of saccadic inhibition by distractor repetition

When visual distractors are presented far from the goal of an impending voluntary saccadic eye movement, saccade execution will occur less frequently about 90 ms after distractor appearance, a phenomenon known as saccadic inhibition. However, it is also known that neural responses in visual and visuomotor areas of the brain will be attenuated if a visual stimulus appears several times in the same location in rapid succession. In particular, such visual adaptation can affect neurons in the mammalian superior colliculus (SC). As the SC is known to be intimately involved in the production of saccadic eye movements, and thus perhaps in saccadic inhibition, we used a memory-guided saccade task to test whether saccadic inhibition in humans would diminish if a distractor appeared several times in quick succession. We found that distractor repetition reduced saccadic inhibition considerably when distractors appeared opposite in space to the goal of the impending saccade. In addition, when three distractors appeared in quick succession but in different, spatially disparate locations, with only the final distractor appearing opposite the saccade goal, saccadic inhibition was reduced by an intermediate level, suggesting that its reduction due to distractor inhibition spatially generalizes. This suggests that distractor suppression can help reduce the impact that suddenly appearing visual stimuli have on purposive eye movement behavior.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This work combines approaches studying saccadic inhibition and visual adaptation to demonstrate that saccadic inhibition is largely eliminated with stimulus repetition. This is likely to be the largest demonstrated effect of visual stimulus context on saccadic inhibition. It also provides evidence for the existence of a mechanism that acts to suppress the effect of frequently appearing visual stimuli on purposive eye movement behavior in dynamic visual environments.

Subcortico-amygdala pathway processes innate and learned threats

Behavioral flexibility and timely reactions to salient stimuli are essential for survival. The subcortical thalamic-basolateral amygdala (BLA) pathway serves as a shortcut for salient stimuli ensuring rapid processing. Here, we show that BLA neuronal and thalamic axonal activity in mice mirror the defensive behavior evoked by an innate visual threat as well as an auditory learned threat. Importantly, perturbing this pathway compromises defensive responses to both forms of threats, in that animals fail to switch from exploratory to defensive behavior. Despite the shared pathway between the two forms of threat processing, we observed noticeable differences. Blocking β-adrenergic receptors impairs the defensive response to the innate but not the learned threats. This reduced defensive response, surprisingly, is reflected in the suppression of the activity exclusively in the BLA as the thalamic input response remains intact. Our side-by-side examination highlights the similarities and differences between innate and learned threat-processing, thus providing new fundamental insights.

Predictability alters multisensory responses by modulating unisensory inputs

The multisensory (deep) layers of the superior colliculus (SC) play an important role in detecting, localizing, and guiding orientation responses to salient events in the environment. Essential to this role is the ability of SC neurons to enhance their responses to events detected by more than one sensory modality and to become desensitized (‘attenuated’ or ‘habituated’) or sensitized (‘potentiated’) to events that are predictable via modulatory dynamics. To identify the nature of these modulatory dynamics, we examined how the repetition of different sensory stimuli affected the unisensory and multisensory responses of neurons in the cat SC. Neurons were presented with 2HZ stimulus trains of three identical visual, auditory, or combined visual–auditory stimuli, followed by a fourth stimulus that was either the same or different (‘switch’). Modulatory dynamics proved to be sensory-specific: they did not transfer when the stimulus switched to another modality. However, they did transfer when switching from the visual–auditory stimulus train to either of its modality-specific component stimuli and vice versa. These observations suggest that predictions, in the form of modulatory dynamics induced by stimulus repetition, are independently sourced from and applied to the modality-specific inputs to the multisensory neuron. This falsifies several plausible mechanisms for these modulatory dynamics: they neither produce general changes in the neuron’s transform, nor are they dependent on the neuron’s output.

The Ecological View of Selective Attention

Accumulating evidence is supporting the hypothesis that our selective attention is a manifestation of mechanisms that evolved early in evolution and are shared by many organisms from different taxa. This surge of new data calls for the re-examination of our notions about attention, which have been dominated mostly by human psychology. Here, we present an hypothesis that challenges, based on evolutionary grounds, a common view of attention as a means to manage limited brain resources. We begin by arguing that evolutionary considerations do not favor the basic proposition of the limited brain resources view of attention, namely, that the capacity of the sensory organs to provide information exceeds the capacity of the brain to process this information. Moreover, physiological studies in animals and humans show that mechanisms of selective attention are highly demanding of brain resources, making it paradoxical to see attention as a means to release brain resources. Next, we build on the above arguments to address the question why attention evolved in evolution. We hypothesize that, to a certain extent, limiting sensory processing is adaptive irrespective of brain capacity. We call this hypothesis the ecological view of attention (EVA) because it is centered on interactions of an animal with its environment rather than on internal brain resources. In its essence is the notion that inherently noisy and degraded sensory inputs serve the animal's adaptive, dynamic interactions with its environment. Attention primarily functions to resolve behavioral conflicts and false distractions. Hence, we evolved to focus on a particular target at the expense of others, not because of internal limitations, but to ensure that behavior is properly oriented and committed to its goals. Here, we expand on this notion and review evidence supporting it. We show how common results in human psychophysics and physiology can be reconciled with an EVA and discuss possible implications of the notion for interpreting current results and guiding future research.

Caught in the ACTS: Defining Abstract Cognitive Task Sequences as an Independent Process

Cognitive neuroscience currently conflates the study of serial responses (e.g., delay match to sample/nonsample, n-back) with the study of sequential operations. In this essay, our goal is to define and disentangle the latter, termed abstract cognitive task sequences (ACTS). Existing literatures address tasks requiring serial events, including procedural learning of implicit motor responses, statistical learning of predictive relationships, and judgments of attributes. These findings do not describe the behavior and underlying mechanism required to succeed at remembering to evaluate color, then shape; or to multiply, then add. A new literature is needed to characterize these sorts of second-order cognitive demands of studying a sequence of operations. Our second goal is to characterize gaps in knowledge related to ACTS that merit further investigation. In the following sections, we define more precisely what we mean by ACTS and suggest research questions' further investigation would be positioned to address.

Adjudicating Between Local and Global Architectures of Predictive Processing in the Subcortical Auditory Pathway

Predictive processing, a leading theoretical framework for sensory processing, suggests that the brain constantly generates predictions on the sensory world and that perception emerges from the comparison between these predictions and the actual sensory input. This requires two distinct neural elements: generative units, which encode the model of the sensory world; and prediction error units, which compare these predictions against the sensory input. Although predictive processing is generally portrayed as a theory of cerebral cortex function, animal and human studies over the last decade have robustly shown the ubiquitous presence of prediction error responses in several nuclei of the auditory, somatosensory, and visual subcortical pathways. In the auditory modality, prediction error is typically elicited using so-called oddball paradigms, where sequences of repeated pure tones with the same pitch are at unpredictable intervals substituted by a tone of deviant frequency. Repeated sounds become predictable promptly and elicit decreasing prediction error; deviant tones break these predictions and elicit large prediction errors. The simplicity of the rules inducing predictability make oddball paradigms agnostic about the origin of the predictions. Here, we introduce two possible models of the organizational topology of the predictive processing auditory network: (1) the global view, that assumes that predictions on the sensory input are generated at high-order levels of the cerebral cortex and transmitted in a cascade of generative models to the subcortical sensory pathways; and (2) the local view, that assumes that independent local models, computed using local information, are used to perform predictions at each processing stage. In the global view information encoding is optimized globally but biases sensory representations along the entire brain according to the subjective views of the observer. The local view results in a diminished coding efficiency, but guarantees in return a robust encoding of the features of sensory input at each processing stage. Although most experimental results to-date are ambiguous in this respect, recent evidence favors the global model.

Limited Evidence for Sensory Prediction Error Responses in Visual Cortex of Macaques and Humans

A recent formulation of predictive coding theory proposes that a subset of neurons in each cortical area encodes sensory prediction errors, the difference between predictions relayed from higher cortex and the sensory input. Here, we test for evidence of prediction error responses in spiking responses and local field potentials (LFP) recorded in primary visual cortex and area V4 of macaque monkeys, and in complementary electroencephalographic (EEG) scalp recordings in human participants. We presented a fixed sequence of visual stimuli on most trials, and violated the expected ordering on a small subset of trials. Under predictive coding theory, pattern-violating stimuli should trigger robust prediction errors, but we found that spiking, LFP and EEG responses to expected and pattern-violating stimuli were nearly identical. Our results challenge the assertion that a fundamental computational motif in sensory cortex is to signal prediction errors, at least those based on predictions derived from temporal patterns of visual stimulation.

Task-Irrelevant Visual Forms Facilitate Covert and Overt Spatial Selection

Covert and overt spatial selection behaviors are guided by both visual saliency maps derived from early visual features as well as priority maps reflecting high-level cognitive factors. However, whether mid-level perceptual processes associated with visual form recognition contribute to covert and overt spatial selection behaviors remains unclear. We hypothesized that if peripheral visual forms contribute to spatial selection behaviors, then they should do so even when the visual forms are task-irrelevant. We tested this hypothesis in male and female human subjects as well as in male macaque monkeys performing a visual detection task. In this task, subjects reported the detection of a suprathreshold target spot presented on top of one of two peripheral images, and they did so with either a speeded manual button press (humans) or a speeded saccadic eye movement response (humans and monkeys). Crucially, the two images, one with a visual form and the other with a partially phase-scrambled visual form, were completely irrelevant to the task. In both manual (covert) and oculomotor (overt) response modalities, and in both humans and monkeys, response times were faster when the target was congruent with a visual form than when it was incongruent. Importantly, incongruent targets were associated with almost all errors, suggesting that forms automatically captured selection behaviors. These findings demonstrate that mid-level perceptual processes associated with visual form recognition contribute to covert and overt spatial selection. This indicates that neural circuits associated with target selection, such as the superior colliculus, may have privileged access to visual form information.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Spatial selection of visual information either with (overt) or without (covert) foveating eye movements is critical to primate behavior. However, it is still not clear whether spatial maps in sensorimotor regions known to guide overt and covert spatial selection are influenced by peripheral visual forms. We probed the ability of humans and monkeys to perform overt and covert target selection in the presence of spatially congruent or incongruent visual forms. Even when completely task-irrelevant, images of visual objects had a dramatic effect on target selection, acting much like spatial cues used in spatial attention tasks. Our results demonstrate that traditional brain circuits for orienting behaviors, such as the superior colliculus, likely have privileged access to visual object representations.

Timing of repetition suppression of event-related potentials to unattended objects

Current theories of object perception emphasize the automatic nature of perceptual inference. Repetition suppression (RS), the successive decrease of brain responses to repeated stimuli, is thought to reflect the optimization of perceptual inference through neural plasticity. While functional imaging studies revealed brain regions that show suppressed responses to the repeated presentation of an object, little is known about the intra-trial time course of repetition effects to everyday objects. Here, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to task-irrelevant line-drawn objects, while participants engaged in a distractor task. We quantified changes in ERPs over repetitions using three general linear models that modeled RS by an exponential, linear, or categorical "change detection" function in each subject. Our aim was to select the model with highest evidence and determine the within-trial time-course and scalp distribution of repetition effects using that model. Model comparison revealed the superiority of the exponential model indicating that repetition effects are observable for trials beyond the first repetition. Model parameter estimates revealed a sequence of RS effects in three time windows (86-140, 322-360, and 400-446 ms) and with occipital, temporoparietal, and frontotemporal distribution, respectively. An interval of repetition enhancement (RE) was also observed (320-340 ms) over occipitotemporal sensors. Our results show that automatic processing of task-irrelevant objects involves multiple intervals of RS with distinct scalp topographies. These sequential intervals of RS and RE might reflect the short-term plasticity required for optimization of perceptual inference and the associated changes in prediction errors and predictions, respectively, over stimulus repetitions during automatic object processing.

Exploring the temporal dynamics of inhibition of return using steady-state visual evoked potentials

Inhibition of return is characterized by delayed responses to previously attended locations when the interval between stimuli is long enough. The present study employed steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) as a measure of attentional modulation to explore the nature and time course of input- and output-based inhibitory cueing mechanisms that each slow response times at previously stimulated locations under different experimental conditions. The neural effects of behavioral inhibition were examined by comparing post-cue SSVEPs between cued and uncued locations measured across two tasks that differed only in the response modality (saccadic or manual response to targets). Grand averages of SSVEP amplitudes for each condition showed a reduction in amplitude at cued locations in the window of 100-500 ms post-cue, revealing an early, short-term decrease in the responses of neurons that can be attributed to sensory adaptation, regardless of response modality. Because primary visual cortex has been found to be one of the major sources of SSVEP signals, the results suggest that the SSVEP modulations observed were caused by input-based inhibition that occurred in V1, or visual areas earlier than V1, as a consequence of reduced visual input activity at previously cued locations. No SSVEP modulations were observed in either response condition late in the cue-target interval, suggesting that neither late input- nor output-based IOR modulates SSVEPs. These findings provide further electrophysiological support for the theory of multiple mechanisms contributing to behavioral cueing effects.

Dynamic Contextual Modulation in Superior Colliculus of Awake Mouse

The responses of neurons in the visual pathway depend on the context in which a stimulus is presented. Responses to predictable stimuli are usually suppressed, highlighting responses to unexpected stimuli that might be important for behavior. Here, we established how context modulates the response of neurons in the superior colliculus (SC), a region important in orienting toward or away from visual stimuli. We made extracellular recordings from single units in the superficial layers of SC in awake mice. We found strong suppression of visual response by spatial context (surround suppression) and temporal context (adaptation). Neurons showing stronger surround suppression also showed stronger adaptation effects. In neurons where it was present, surround suppression was dynamic and was reduced by adaptation. Adaptation's effects further revealed two components to surround suppression: one component that was weakly tuned for orientation and adaptable, and another component that was more strongly tuned but less adaptable. The selectivity of the tuned component was flexible, such that suppression was stronger when the stimulus over the surround matched that over the receptive field. Our results therefore reveal strong interactions between spatial and temporal context in regulating the flow of signals through mouse SC, and suggest the presence of a subpopulation of neurons that might signal novelty in either space or time.

Magnitude, time course, and specificity of rapid adaptation across mouse visual areas

Adaptation is a ubiquitous feature of sensory processing whereby recent experience shapes future responses. The mouse primary visual cortex (V1) is particularly sensitive to recent experience, where a brief stimulus can suppress subsequent responses for seconds. This rapid adaptation profoundly impacts perception, suggesting that its effects are propagated along the visual hierarchy. To understand how rapid adaptation influences sensory processing, we measured its effects at key nodes in the visual system: in V1, three higher visual areas (HVAs: lateromedial, anterolateral, and posteromedial), and the superior colliculus (SC) in awake mice of both sexes using single-unit recordings. Consistent with the feed-forward propagation of adaptation along the visual hierarchy, we find that neurons in layer 4 adapt less strongly than those in other layers of V1. Furthermore, neurons in the HVAs adapt more strongly, and recover more slowly, than those in V1. The magnitude and time course of adaptation was comparable in each of the HVAs and in the SC, suggesting that adaptation may not linearly accumulate along the feed-forward visual processing hierarchy. Despite the increase in adaptation in the HVAs compared with V1, the effects were similarly orientation specific across all areas. These data reveal that adaptation profoundly shapes cortical processing, with increasing impact at higher levels in the cortical hierarchy, and also strongly influencing computations in the SC. Thus, we find robust, brain-wide effects of rapid adaptation on sensory processing.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Rapid adaptation dynamically alters sensory signals to account for recent experience. To understand how adaptation affects sensory processing and perception, we must determine how it impacts the diverse set of cortical and subcortical areas along the hierarchy of the mouse visual system. We find that rapid adaptation strongly impacts neurons in primary visual cortex, the higher visual areas, and the colliculus, consistent with its profound effects on behavior.

Inhibitory and Facilitatory Cueing Effects: Competition between Exogenous and Endogenous Mechanisms

Inhibition of return is characterized by delayed responses to previously attended locations when the cue-target onset asynchrony (CTOA) is long enough. However, when cues are predictive of a target’s location, faster reaction times to cued as compared to uncued targets are normally observed. In this series of experiments investigating saccadic reaction times, we manipulated the cue predictability to 25% (counterpredictive), 50% (nonpredictive), and 75% (predictive) to investigate the interaction between predictive endogenous facilitatory (FCEs) and inhibitory cueing effects (ICEs). Overall, larger ICEs were seen in the counterpredictive condition than in the nonpredictive condition, and no ICE was found in the predictive condition. Based on the hypothesized additivity of FCEs and ICEs, we reasoned that the null ICEs observed in the predictive condition are the result of two opposing mechanisms balancing each other out, and the large ICEs observed with counterpredictive cueing can be attributed to the combination of endogenous facilitation at uncued locations with inhibition at cued locations. Our findings suggest that the endogenous activity contributed by cue predictability can reduce the overall inhibition observed when the mechanisms occur at the same location, or enhance behavioral inhibition when the mechanisms occur at opposite locations.

Modeling Saccadic Action Selection: Cortical and Basal Ganglia Signals Coalesce in the Superior Colliculus

The distributed nature of information processing in the brain creates a complex variety of decision making behavior. Likewise, computational models of saccadic decision making behavior are numerous and diverse. Here we present a generative model of saccadic action selection in the context of competitive decision making in the superior colliculus (SC) in order to investigate how independent neural signals may converge to interact and guide saccade selection, and to test if systematic variations can better replicate the variability in responses that are part of normal human behavior. The model was tasked with performing pro- and anti-saccades in order to replicate specific attributes of healthy human saccade behavior. Participants (ages 18-39) were instructed to either look toward (pro-saccade, well-practiced automated response) or away from (anti-saccade, combination of inhibitory and voluntary responses) a peripheral visual stimulus. They generated express and regular latency saccades in the pro-saccade task. In the anti-saccade task, correct reaction times were longer and participants occasionally looked at the stimulus (direction error) at either express or regular latencies. To gain a better understanding of the underlying neural processes that lead to saccadic action selection and response inhibition, we implemented 8 inputs inspired by systems neuroscience. These inputs reflected known sensory, automated, voluntary, and inhibitory components of cortical and basal ganglia activity that coalesces in the intermediate layers of the SC (SCi). The model produced bimodal reaction time distributions, where express and regular latency saccades had distinct modes, for both correct pro-saccades and direction errors in the anti-saccade task. Importantly, express and regular latency direction errors resulted from interactions of different inputs in the model. Express latency direction errors were due to a lack of pre-emptive fixation and inhibitory activity, which aloud sensory and automated inputs to initiate a stimulus-driven saccade. Regular latency errors occurred when the automated motor signals were stronger than the voluntary motor signals. While previous models have emulated fewer aspects of these behavioral findings, the focus of the simulations here is on the interaction of a wide variety of physiologically-based information integration producing a richer set of natural behavioral variability.

Integration of visual and whisker signals in rat superior colliculus

Multisensory integration is a process by which signals from different sensory modalities are combined to facilitate detection and localization of external events. One substrate for multisensory integration is the midbrain superior colliculus (SC) which plays an important role in orienting behavior. In rodent SC, visual and somatosensory (whisker) representations are in approximate registration, but whether and how these signals interact is unclear. We measured spiking activity in SC of anesthetized hooded rats, during presentation of visual- and whisker stimuli that were tested simultaneously or in isolation. Visual responses were found in all layers, but were primarily located in superficial layers. Whisker responsive sites were primarily found in intermediate layers. In single- and multi-unit recording sites, spiking activity was usually only sensitive to one modality, when stimuli were presented in isolation. By contrast, we observed robust and primarily suppressive interactions when stimuli were presented simultaneously to both modalities. We conclude that while visual and whisker representations in SC of rat are partially overlapping, there is limited excitatory convergence onto individual sites. Multimodal integration may instead rely on suppressive interactions between modalities.

No supplementary evidence of attention to a spatial cue when saccadic facilitation is absent

Attending a location in space facilitates responses to targets at that location when the time between cue and target is short. Certain types of exogenous cues – such as sudden peripheral onsets – have been described as reflexive and automatic. Recent studies however, have been showing many cases where exogenous cues are less automatic than previously believed and do not always result in facilitation. A lack of the behavioral facilitation, however, does not automatically necessitate a lack of underlying attention to that location. We test exogenous cueing in two experiments where facilitation is and is not likely to be observed with saccadic responses. We also test alternate measures linked to the allocation of attention such as saccadic curvature, microsaccades and pupil size. As expected, we find early facilitation as measured by saccadic reaction time when CTOAs are predictable but not when they are randomized within a block. We find no impact of the cue on microsaccade direction for either experiment, and only a slight dip in the frequency of microsaccades after the cue. We do find that change in pupil size to the cue predicts the magnitude of the validity effect, but only in the experiment where facilitation was observed. In both experiments, we observed a tendency for saccadic curvature to deviate away from the cued location and this was stronger for early CTOAs and toward vertical targets. Overall, we find that only change in pupil size is consistent with observed facilitation. Saccadic curvature is influenced by the onset of the cue, buts its direction is indicative of oculomotor inhibition whether we see RT facilitation or not. Microsaccades were not diagnostic in either experiment. Finally, we see little to no evidence of attention at the cued location in any additional measures when facilitation of saccadic responses is absent.

Behavioral Evidence and Neural Correlates of Perceptual Grouping by Motion in the Barn Owl

Perceiving an object as salient from its surround often requires a preceding process of grouping the object and background elements as perceptual wholes. In humans, motion homogeneity provides a strong cue for grouping, yet it is unknown to what extent this occurs in nonprimate species. To explore this question, we studied the effects of visual motion homogeneity in barn owls of both genders, at the behavioral as well as the neural level. Our data show that the coherency of the background motion modulates the perceived saliency of the target object. An object moving in an odd direction relative to other objects attracted more attention when the other objects moved homogeneously compared with when moved in a variety of directions. A possible neural correlate of this effect may arise in the population activity of the intermediate/deep layers of the optic tectum. In these layers, the neural responses to a moving element in the receptive field were suppressed when additional elements moved in the surround. However, when the surrounding elements all moved in one direction (homogeneously moving), they induced less suppression of the response compared with nonhomogeneously moving elements. Moreover, neural responses were more sensitive to the homogeneity of the background motion than to motion-direction contrasts between the receptive field and the surround. The findings suggest similar principles of saliency-by-motion in an avian species as in humans and show a locus in the optic tectum where the underlying neural circuitry may exist.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT A critical task of the visual system is to arrange incoming visual information to a meaningful scene of objects and background. In humans, elements that move homogeneously are grouped perceptually to form a categorical whole object. We discovered a similar principle in the barn owl's visual system, whereby the homogeneity of the motion of elements in the scene allows perceptually distinguishing an object from its surround. The novel findings of these visual effects in an avian species, which lacks neocortical structure, suggest that our basic visual perception shares more universal principles across species than presently thought, and shed light on possible brain mechanisms for perceptual grouping.

Locus Coeruleus and Dopamine-Dependent Memory Consolidation

Most everyday memories including many episodic-like memories that we may form automatically in the hippocampus (HPC) are forgotten, while some of them are retained for a long time by a memory stabilization process, called initial memory consolidation. Specifically, the retention of everyday memory is enhanced, in humans and animals, when something novel happens shortly before or after the time of encoding. Converging evidence has indicated that dopamine (DA) signaling via D₁/D₅ receptors in HPC is required for persistence of synaptic plasticity and memory, thereby playing an important role in the novelty-associated memory enhancement. In this review paper, we aim to provide an overview of the key findings related to D₁/D₅ receptor-dependent persistence of synaptic plasticity and memory in HPC, especially focusing on the emerging evidence for a role of the locus coeruleus (LC) in DA-dependent memory consolidation. We then refer to candidate brain areas and circuits that might be responsible for detection and transmission of the environmental novelty signal and molecular and anatomical evidence for the LC-DA system. We also discuss molecular mechanisms that might mediate the environmental novelty-associated memory enhancement, including plasticity-related proteins that are involved in initial memory consolidation processes in HPC.

Effects of a pretarget distractor on saccade reaction times across space and time in monkeys and humans

Previous studies have shown that the influence of a behaviorally irrelevant distractor on saccade reaction times (SRTs) varies depending on the temporal and spatial relationship between the distractor and the saccade target. We measured distractor influence on SRTs to a subsequently presented target, varying the spatial location and the timing between the distractor and the target. The distractor appeared at one of four equally eccentric locations, followed by a target (either 50 ms or 200 ms after) at one of 136 different locations encompassing an area of 20° square. We extensively tested two humans and two monkeys on this task to determine interspecies similarities and differences, since monkey neurophysiology is often used to interpret human behavioral findings. Results were similar across species; for the short interval (50 ms), SRTs were shortest to a target presented close to or at the distractor location and increased primarily as a function of the distance from the distractor. There was also an effect of distractor-target direction and visual field. For the long interval (200 ms) the results were inverted; SRTs were longest for short distances between the distractor and target and decreased as a function of distance from distractor. Both SRT patterns were well captured by a two-dimensional dynamic field model with short-distance excitation and long-distance inhibition, based upon known functional connectivity found in the superior colliculus that includes wide-spread excitation and inhibition. Based on these findings, we posit that the different time-dependent patterns of distractor-related SRTs can emerge from the same underlying neuronal mechanisms common to both species.

Color-Change Detection Activity in the Primate Superior Colliculus

The primate superior colliculus (SC) is a midbrain structure that participates in the control of spatial attention. Previous studies examining the role of the SC in attention have mostly used luminance-based visual features (e.g., motion, contrast) as the stimuli and saccadic eye movements as the behavioral response, both of which are known to modulate the activity of SC neurons. To explore the limits of the SC’s involvement in the control of spatial attention, we recorded SC neuronal activity during a task using color, a visual feature dimension not traditionally associated with the SC, and required monkeys to detect threshold-level changes in the saturation of a cued stimulus by releasing a joystick during maintained fixation. Using this color-based spatial attention task, we found substantial cue-related modulation in all categories of visually responsive neurons in the intermediate layers of the SC. Notably, near-threshold changes in color saturation, both increases and decreases, evoked phasic bursts of activity with magnitudes as large as those evoked by stimulus onset. This change-detection activity had two distinctive features: activity for hits was larger than for misses, and the timing of change-detection activity accounted for 67% of joystick release latency, even though it preceded the release by at least 200 ms. We conclude that during attention tasks, SC activity denotes the behavioral relevance of the stimulus regardless of feature dimension and that phasic event-related SC activity is suitable to guide the selection of manual responses as well as saccadic eye movements.

Opposite initialization to novel cues in dopamine signaling in ventral and posterior striatum in mice

Dopamine neurons are thought to encode novelty in addition to reward prediction error (the discrepancy between actual and predicted values). In this study, we compared dopamine activity across the striatum using fiber fluorometry in mice. During classical conditioning, we observed opposite dynamics in dopamine axon signals in the ventral striatum (‘VS dopamine’) and the posterior tail of the striatum (‘TS dopamine’). TS dopamine showed strong excitation to novel cues, whereas VS dopamine showed no responses to novel cues until they had been paired with a reward. TS dopamine cue responses decreased over time, depending on what the cue predicted. Additionally, TS dopamine showed excitation to several types of stimuli including rewarding, aversive, and neutral stimuli whereas VS dopamine showed excitation only to reward or reward-predicting cues. Together, these results demonstrate that dopamine novelty signals are localized in TS along with general salience signals, while VS dopamine reliably encodes reward prediction error.

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.21886.001

New experiences trigger a variety of responses in animals. We are surprised by, move towards, and often explore new objects. But how does the brain control these responses?

Dopamine is a molecule that controls many processes in the brain and plays critical roles in various mental disorders, diseases that affect movement, and addiction. Rewarding experiences (like a glass of cold water on a hot day) can trigger dopamine neurons and studies have also shown that dopamine neurons respond to new experiences. This suggested that novelty may be rewarding in itself, or that novelty may signal the potential for future reward. On the other hand, it may be that different groups of dopamine neurons play different roles in responding to new or rewarding experiences.

In 2015, it was reported that dopamine neurons connected to the rear part of an area in the brain called the striatum receive signals from different parts of the brain than most other dopamine neurons. The dopamine neurons connected to this “tail” of the striatum preferentially received inputs from regions involved in arousal rather than reward, suggesting that they may have a unique role and transmit a different type of information.

Now, Menegas et al. have shown that dopamine signals in different areas of the striatum separate reward from novelty and other signals in mice. The results demonstrate that new odors activate dopamine neurons projecting to the tail of the striatum, but that this activity fades as the novelty wears off (as the mice learn to associate the odor with a particular outcome). By contrast, dopamine neurons projecting to the front of the striatum do not respond to novelty, but rather become more active as mice learn which odors accompany rewards (only responding to odors that predict reward). The experiments also show that dopamine neurons in the tail of the striatum encode information about the importance of a stimulus.

Together, these findings indicate that some of the roles dopamine plays in the brain may not be related to reward, but are instead linked to the novelty and importance of the stimulus. The next challenge will be to find out how the separate reward and novelty signals in dopamine neurons relate to the animals’ behavior. This may help us to better understand dopamine-related psychiatric conditions, such as depression and addiction.

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.21886.002

A circuit for saccadic suppression in the primate brain

Saccades should cause us to see a blur as the eyes sweep across a visual scene. Specific brain mechanisms prevent this by producing suppression during saccades. Neuronal correlates of such suppression were first established in the visual superficial layers of the superior colliculus (SC) and subsequently have been observed in cortical visual areas, including the middle temporal visual area (MT). In this study, we investigated suppression in a recently identified circuit linking visual SC (SCs) to MT through the inferior pulvinar (PI). We examined responses to visual stimuli presented just before saccades to reveal a neuronal correlate of suppression driven by a copy of the saccade command, referred to as a corollary discharge. We found that visual responses were similarly suppressed in SCs, PI, and MT. Within each region, suppression of visual responses occurred with saccades into both visual hemifields, but only in the contralateral hemifield did this suppression consistently begin before the saccade (~100 ms). The consistency of the signal along the circuit led us to hypothesize that the suppression in MT was influenced by input from the SC. We tested this hypothesis in one monkey by inactivating neurons within the SC and found evidence that suppression in MT depends on corollary discharge signals from motor SC (SCi). Combining these results with recent findings in rodents, we propose a complete circuit originating with corollary discharge signals in SCi that produces suppression in visual SCs, PI, and ultimately, MT cortex.NEW & NOTEWORTHY A fundamental puzzle in visual neuroscience is that we frequently make rapid eye movements (saccades) but seldom perceive the visual blur accompanying each movement. We investigated neuronal correlates of this saccadic suppression by recording from and perturbing a recently identified circuit from brainstem to cortex. We found suppression at each stage, with evidence that it was driven by an internally generated signal. We conclude that this circuit contributes to neuronal suppression of visual signals during eye movements.

Resonant Cholinergic Dynamics in Cognitive and Motor Decision-Making: Attention, Category Learning, and Choice in Neocortex, Superior Colliculus, and Optic Tectum

Freely behaving organisms need to rapidly calibrate their perceptual, cognitive, and motor decisions based on continuously changing environmental conditions. These plastic changes include sharpening or broadening of cognitive and motor attention and learning to match the behavioral demands that are imposed by changing environmental statistics. This article proposes that a shared circuit design for such flexible decision-making is used in specific cognitive and motor circuits, and that both types of circuits use acetylcholine to modulate choice selectivity. Such task-sensitive control is proposed to control thalamocortical choice of the critical features that are cognitively attended and that are incorporated through learning into prototypes of visual recognition categories. A cholinergically-modulated process of vigilance control determines if a recognition category and its attended features are abstract (low vigilance) or concrete (high vigilance). Homologous neural mechanisms of cholinergic modulation are proposed to focus attention and learn a multimodal map within the deeper layers of superior colliculus. This map enables visual, auditory, and planned movement commands to compete for attention, leading to selection of a winning position that controls where the next saccadic eye movement will go. Such map learning may be viewed as a kind of attentive motor category learning. The article hereby explicates a link between attention, learning, and cholinergic modulation during decision making within both cognitive and motor systems. Homologs between the mammalian superior colliculus and the avian optic tectum lead to predictions about how multimodal map learning may occur in the mammalian and avian brain and how such learning may be modulated by acetycholine.

Visual Adaptation

Sensory systems continuously mold themselves to the widely varying contexts in which they must operate. Studies of these adaptations have played a long and central role in vision science. In part this is because the specific adaptations remain a powerful tool for dissecting vision, by exposing the mechanisms that are adapting. That is, "if it adapts, it's there." Many insights about vision have come from using adaptation in this way, as a method. A second important trend has been the realization that the processes of adaptation are themselves essential to how vision works, and thus are likely to operate at all levels. That is, "if it's there, it adapts." This has focused interest on the mechanisms of adaptation as the target rather than the probe. Together both approaches have led to an emerging insight of adaptation as a fundamental and ubiquitous coding strategy impacting all aspects of how we see.

Transient visual responses reset the phase of low-frequency oscillations in the skeletomotor periphery

We recorded muscle activity from an upper limb muscle while human subjects reached towards peripheral targets. We tested the hypothesis that the transient visual response sweeps not only through the central nervous system, but also through the peripheral nervous system. Like the transient visual response in the central nervous system, stimulus-locked muscle responses (< 100 ms) were sensitive to stimulus contrast, and were temporally and spatially dissociable from voluntary orienting activity. Also, the arrival of visual responses reduced the variability of muscle activity by resetting the phase of ongoing low-frequency oscillations. This latter finding critically extends the emerging evidence that the feedforward visual sweep reduces neural variability via phase resetting. We conclude that, when sensory information is relevant to a particular effector, detailed information about the sensorimotor transformation, even from the earliest stages, is found in the peripheral nervous system.

Spatio-temporal response properties of local field potentials in the primate superior colliculus

Local field potentials (LFPs) are becoming increasingly popular in neurophysiological studies. However, to date, most of the knowledge about LFPs has been obtained from cortical recordings. Here, we recorded single unit activity (SUA) and LFPs simultaneously from the superior colliculus (SC) of behaving rhesus monkeys. The SC is a midbrain structure that plays a central role in the visual orienting response. Previous studies have characterised the visual and visuomotor response properties of SUA in the superficial layers of the SC and the intermediate layers of the SC, respectively. We found that the signal properties of SUA were well preserved in the LFPs recorded from the SC. The SUA and LFPs had similar spatial and temporal properties, and the response properties of LFPs differed across layers, i.e. purely visual in the superficial layers of the SC but showing significant motor responses in the intermediate layers of the SC. There were also differences between SUA and LFPs. LFPs showed a significant reversal of activity following the phasic visual response, suggesting that the neighboring neurons were suppressed. The results indicate that the LFP can be used as a reliable measure of the SC activity in lieu of SUA, and open up a new way to assess sensorimotor processing within the SC.

Neurons in macaque inferior temporal cortex show no surprise response to deviants in visual oddball sequences

Many studies measured neural responses in oddball paradigms, showing a different response to the same stimulus when presented with a low (deviant) compared with a high probability (standard) in a sequence. Such a differential response is manifested in event-related potential studies as the mismatch negativity (MMN) and has been observed in several sensory modalities, including vision. Other studies showed that stimulus repetition suppresses the neural response. It has been suggested that this adaptation effect underlies the smaller responses to the standard compared with the deviant stimulus in oddball sequences. However, the MMN may also reflect the violation of a prediction based on the sequence of standards, i.e., a surprise response. We examined the presence of a surprise response to deviants in visual oddball sequences in macaque (Macaca mulatta) inferior temporal (IT) cortex, a higher-order cortical area. In agreement with visual MMN studies, single-unit IT responses were greater for the deviant than for the standard stimuli. However, single IT neurons showed no greater response to the deviant stimulus in the oddball sequence than to the same stimulus presented with the same probability in a sequence that consisted of many stimuli. LFPs also showed no evidence of a surprise response. These data suggest that stimulus-specific adaptation, without a surprise-related boost of activity to the deviant, underlies the responses in visual oddball sequences even in higher visual cortex. Furthermore, we show that for IT neurons such adaptive mechanisms take into account a relatively short stimulus history, with weaker effects at longer time scales.

Moving sensory adaptation beyond suppressive effects in single neurons

How an object is perceived depends on the temporal context in which it is encountered. Sensory signals in the brain also depend on temporal context, a phenomenon often referred to as adaptation. Traditional descriptions of adaptation effects emphasize various forms of response fatigue in single neurons, which grow in strength with exposure to a stimulus. Recent work on vision, and other sensory modalities, has shown that this description has substantial shortcomings. Here we review our emerging understanding of how adaptation alters the balance between excitatory and suppressive signals, how effects depend on adaptation duration, and how adaptation influences representations that are distributed within and across multiple brain structures. This work points to a sophisticated set of mechanisms for adjusting to recent sensory experience, and suggests new avenues for understanding their function.

S-cone Visual Stimuli Activate Superior Colliculus Neurons in Old World Monkeys: Implications for Understanding Blindsight

The superior colliculus (SC) is thought to be unresponsive to stimuli that activate only short wavelength-sensitive cones (S-cones) in the retina. The apparent lack of S-cone input to the SC was recognized by Sumner et al. [Sumner, P., Adamjee, T., & Mollon, J. D. Signals invisible to the collicular and magnocellular pathways can capture visual attention. Current Biology, 12, 1312–1316, 2002] as an opportunity to test SC function. The idea is that visual behavior dependent on the SC should be impaired when S-cone stimuli are used because they are invisible to the SC. The SC plays a critical role in blindsight. If the SC is insensitive to S-cone stimuli blindsight behavior should be impaired when S-cone stimuli are used. Many clinical and behavioral studies have been based on the assumption that S-cone-specific stimuli do not activate neurons in the SC. Our goal was to test whether single neurons in macaque SC respond to stimuli that activate only S-cones. Stimuli were calibrated psychophysically in each animal and at each individual spatial location used in experimental testing [Hall, N. J., & Colby, C. L. Psychophysical definition of S-cone stimuli in the macaque. Journal of Vision, 13, 2013]. We recorded from 178 visually responsive neurons in two awake, behaving rhesus monkeys. Contrary to the prevailing view, we found that nearly all visual SC neurons can be activated by S-cone-specific visual stimuli. Most of these neurons were sensitive to the degree of S-cone contrast. Of 178 visual SC neurons, 155 (87%) had stronger responses to a high than to a low S-cone contrast. Many of these neurons' responses (56/178 or 31%) significantly distinguished between the high and low S-cone contrast stimuli. The latency and amplitude of responses depended on S-cone contrast. These findings indicate that stimuli that activate only S-cones cannot be used to diagnose collicular mediation.

Saliency mapping in the optic tectum and its relationship to habituation

Habituation of the orienting response has long served as a model system for studying fundamental psychological phenomena such as learning, attention, decisions, and surprise. In this article, we review an emerging hypothesis that the evolutionary role of the superior colliculus (SC) in mammals or its homolog in birds, the optic tectum (OT), is to select the most salient target and send this information to the appropriate brain regions to control the body and brain orienting responses. Recent studies have begun to reveal mechanisms of how saliency is computed in the OT/SC, demonstrating a striking similarity between mammals and birds. The saliency of a target can be determined by how different it is from the surrounding objects, by how different it is from its history (that is habituation) and by how relevant it is for the task at hand. Here, we will first review evidence, mostly from primates and barn owls, that all three types of saliency computations are linked in the OT/SC. We will then focus more on neural adaptation in the OT and its possible link to temporal saliency and habituation.

Information-seeking, curiosity, and attention: computational and neural mechanisms

Intelligent animals devote much time and energy to exploring and obtaining information, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. We review recent developments on this topic that have emerged from the traditionally separate fields of machine learning, eye movements in natural behavior, and studies of curiosity in psychology and neuroscience. These studies show that exploration may be guided by a family of mechanisms that range from automatic biases toward novelty or surprise to systematic searches for learning progress and information gain in curiosity-driven behavior. In addition, eye movements reflect visual information searching in multiple conditions and are amenable for cellular-level investigations. This suggests that the oculomotor system is an excellent model system for understanding information-sampling mechanisms.

Adaptation improves performance on a visual search task

Temporal context, or adaptation, profoundly affects visual perception. Despite the strength and prevalence of adaptation effects, their functional role in visual processing remains unclear. The effects of spatial context and their functional role are better understood: these effects highlight features that differ from their surroundings and determine stimulus salience. Similarities in the perceptual and physiological effects of spatial and temporal context raise the possibility that they serve similar functions. We therefore tested the possibility that adaptation can enhance stimulus salience. We measured the effects of prolonged (40 s) adaptation to a counterphase grating on performance in a search task in which targets were defined by an orientation offset relative to a background of distracters. We found that, for targets with small orientation offsets, adaptation reduced reaction times and decreased the number of saccades made to find targets. Our results provide evidence that adaptation may function to highlight features that differ from the temporal context in which they are embedded.

GABAergic mechanisms for shaping transient visual responses in the mouse superior colliculus

An object that suddenly appears in the visual field should be quickly detected and responded to because it could be beneficial or harmful. The superficial layer of the superior colliculus (sSC) is a brain structure capable of such functions, as sSC neurons exhibit sharp transient spike discharges with short latency in response to the appearance of a visual stimulus. However, how transient activity is generated in the sSC is poorly understood. Here, we show that inhibitory inputs actively shape transient activity in the sSC. Juxtacellular recordings from anesthetized mice demonstrate that almost all types of sSC neurons, which were identified by post hoc histochemistry, show transient spike discharges, i.e., ON activity, immediately after visual stimulus onset. ON activity was followed by a pause before the visual stimulus was turned off. To determine whether the pause reflected the absence of excitatory drive or inhibitory conductance, we injected depolarizing currents juxtasomally, which enabled us to observe inhibition as decreased discharges. The pause was observed even under this condition, suggesting that inhibitory input caused the pause. We further found that local application of a mixture of GABAA and GABAB receptor antagonists additively diminished the pause. These results indicate that GABAergic inputs produce transient ON responses by attenuating excitatory activity through the cooperative activation of GABAA and GABAB receptors, allowing sSC neurons to act as a saliency detector.

Neuronal correlates of visual time perception at brief timescales

Successful interaction with the world depends on accurate perception of the timing of external events. Neurons at early stages of the primate visual system represent time-varying stimuli with high precision. However, it is unknown whether this temporal fidelity is maintained in the prefrontal cortex, where changes in neuronal activity generally correlate with changes in perception. One reason to suspect that it is not maintained is that humans experience surprisingly large fluctuations in the perception of time. To investigate the neuronal correlates of time perception, we recorded from neurons in the prefrontal cortex and midbrain of monkeys performing a temporal-discrimination task. Visual time intervals were presented at a timescale relevant to natural behavior (<500 ms). At this brief timescale, neuronal adaptation--time-dependent changes in the size of successive responses--occurs. We found that visual activity fluctuated with timing judgments in the prefrontal cortex but not in comparable midbrain areas. Surprisingly, only response strength, not timing, predicted task performance. Intervals perceived as longer were associated with larger visual responses and shorter intervals with smaller responses, matching the dynamics of adaptation. These results suggest that the magnitude of prefrontal activity may be read out to provide temporal information that contributes to judging the passage of time.

Distinct neural mechanisms of distractor suppression in the frontal and parietal lobe

The posterior parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex are associated with eye movements and visual attention, but their specific contributions are poorly understood. We compared the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) in monkeys using a memory saccade task in which a salient distractor flashed at a variable timing and location during the memory delay. We found that the two areas had similar responses to target selection, but made distinct contributions to distractor suppression. Distractor responses were more strongly suppressed and more closely correlated with performance in the dlPFC relative to LIP. Moreover, reversible inactivation of the dlPFC produced much larger increases in distractibility than inactivation of LIP. These findings suggest that LIP and dlPFC mediate different aspects of selective attention. Although both areas can contribute to the perceptual selection of salient information, the dlPFC has a decisive influence on whether and how attended stimulus is linked with actions.

Spatiotemporal structure of visual receptive fields in macaque superior colliculus

Saccades are useful for directing the high-acuity fovea to visual targets that are of behavioral relevance. The selection of visual targets for eye movements involves the superior colliculus (SC), where many neurons respond to visual stimuli. Many of these neurons are also activated before and during saccades of specific directions and amplitudes. Although the role of the SC in controlling eye movements has been thoroughly examined, far less is known about the nature of the visual responses in this area. We have, therefore, recorded from neurons in the intermediate layers of the macaque SC, while using a sparse-noise mapping procedure to obtain a detailed characterization of the spatiotemporal structure of visual receptive fields. We find that SC responses to flashed visual stimuli start roughly 50 ms after the onset of the stimulus and last for on average ∼70 ms. About 50% of these neurons are strongly suppressed by visual stimuli flashed at certain locations flanking the excitatory center, and the spatiotemporal pattern of suppression exerts a predictable influence on the timing of saccades. This suppression may, therefore, contribute to the filtering of distractor stimuli during target selection. We also find that saccades affect the processing of visual stimuli by SC neurons in a manner that is quite similar to the saccadic suppression and postsaccadic enhancement that has been observed in the cortex and in perception. However, in contrast to what has been observed in the cortex, decreased visual sensitivity was generally associated with increased firing rates, while increased sensitivity was associated with decreased firing rates. Overall, these results suggest that the processing of visual stimuli by SC receptive fields can influence oculomotor behavior and that oculomotor signals originating in the SC can shape perisaccadic visual perception.

Attention, learning, and the value of information

Despite many studies on selective attention, fundamental questions remain about its nature and neural mechanisms. Here I draw from the animal and machine learning fields that describe attention as a mechanism for active learning and uncertainty reduction and explore the implications of this view for understanding visual attention and eye movement control. I propose that a closer integration of these different views has the potential greatly to expand our understanding of oculomotor control and our ability to use this system as a window into high level but poorly understood cognitive functions, including the capacity for curiosity and exploration and for inferring internal models of the external world.

Inhibition of return in a visual foraging task in non-human subjects

Inhibition of return is thought to help guide visual search by inhibiting the orienting of attention to previously attended locations. We have previously shown that, in a foraging visual search task, the neural responses to objects in parietal cortex are reduced after they have been examined. Here we ask whether the animals' reaction times (RTs) in the same task show a psychophysical correlate of inhibition of return: a slowing of reaction time in response to a probe placed at a previously fixated location. We trained three animals to perform an RT version of the visual foraging task. In the foraging task, subjects visually searched through an array of five identical distractors and five identical potential targets; one of which had a reward linked to it. In the RT variant of the task, subjects had to rapidly respond to a probe if it appeared. We found that RTs were slower for probes presented at locations that contained previously fixated objects, faster to potential targets and between the two for behaviorally irrelevant distractors that had not been fixated. These data show behavioral inhibitory tagging of previously fixated objects and suggest that the suppression of activity seen previously in the same task in parietal cortex could be a neural correlate of this mechanism.