Frontoparietal Cortex Mediates Perceptual Transitions in Bistable Perception

Abstract

During bistable vision, perception oscillates between two mutually exclusive percepts despite constant sensory input. Greater BOLD responses in frontoparietal cortex have been shown to be associated with endogenous perceptual transitions compared with "replay" transitions designed to closely match bistability in both perceptual quality and timing. It has remained controversial, however, whether this enhanced activity reflects causal influences of these regions on processing at the sensory level or, alternatively, an effect of stimulus differences that result in, for example, longer durations of perceptual transitions in bistable perception compared with replay conditions. Using a rotating Lissajous figure in an fMRI experiment on 15 human participants, we controlled for potential confounds of differences in transition duration and confirmed previous findings of greater activity in frontoparietal areas for transitions during bistable perception. In addition, we applied dynamic causal modeling to identify the neural model that best explains the observed BOLD signals in terms of effective connectivity. We found that enhanced activity for perceptual transitions is associated with a modulation of top-down connectivity from frontal to visual cortex, thus arguing for a crucial role of frontoparietal cortex in perceptual transitions during bistable perception.

Identifying neural correlates of visual consciousness with ALE meta-analyses

“…The meta-analysis on the bistable perception paradigm on the other hand revealed mainly significant activation in (predominantly right) frontal and parietal regions. The predominance of the right hemisphere in our results of the exploratory meta-analysis on the bistable perception paradigm is in line with effective connectivity studies showing that perceptual reversals in the bistable perception paradigm are induced by right-sided interactions of fronto-parietal areas with higher-level extrastriate areas(Megumi et al, 2015;Vernet et al, 2015;Weilnhammer et al, 2013). Given that the fronto-parietal regions resulting from our meta-analysis on the bistable perception paradigm have been shown to be involved in topdown selective attention, inhibitory control, and updating working memory (e.g.,Bashivan et al, 2014; Derrfuss et al, 2005; Kim et al, 2012;Rottschy et al, 2012; see section 4.4), the paradigm might primarily tap into top-down attentional modulation and the post-sensory gating mechanism involved in updating the content of the global workspace (e.g.,Kiefer et al, 2011).…”

Perceptual, cognitive, and personality rigidity in Parkinson's disease

“…This selection theory suggests that attention-related frontal-parietal areas are responsible for initiating perceptual alternations by sending top-down signals to guide activity in visual cortex toward one representation or the other. Fronto-parietal activation during bistable perception has been supported by imaging studies using ambiguous figures and binocular rivalry paradigms (Amir, 2007; Blake & Logothetis, 2002; Britz, Landis, & Michel, 2009; Knapen, Brascamp, Pearson, van ee, Blake, 2011; Sterzer & Kleinschmidt, 2007; Weilnhammer, Ludwig, Hesselmann, Sterzer, 2013; Wilcke, O’Shea, & Watts, 2009). PD affects the cortico-striato-thalamocortical circuitry including connections to frontal and parietal cortices (for reviews see Christopher & Strafella, 2013; Tinaz, Courtney & Stern, 2011), raising the question of whether there is perceptual rigidity in PD; that is, how individuals with this disorder perceive bistable figures and experience binocular rivalry.…”

Perceptual Stability of the Lissajous Figure Is Modulated by the Speed of Illusory Rotation

“…However, if one assumes that the illusory percept is the result of an inferential process that is, in principle, equal for all types of presented stimuli and leads to a perceptual experience closely resembling perception under unambiguous conditions [7], it is not surprising that effects such as “representational momentum” can be evoked by ambiguous and unambiguous stimuli alike.…”