Natural motion trajectory enhances the coding of speed in primate extrastriate cortex

Davies, Amanda J.; Chaplin, Tristan A.; Rosa, Marcello G. P.; Yu, Hsin‐Hao

doi:10.1038/srep19739

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…We have characterized the direction selectivity of marmoset monkey MT neurons to random-dot motion stimuli. The majority of the responses were highly direction selective, as reported by previous studies in this species, using various types of stimuli (luminance and coherent motion-defined bars: Lui et al, 2012; gratings: Lui et al, 2007a; Davies et al, 2016; random dots: Solomon et al, 2011; See Lui and Rosa, 2014, for a review). Building upon these findings, we studied the extent to which the responses are influenced by different levels of random-dot motion noise.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Sensitivity of Neurons in the Middle Temporal Area of Marmoset Monkeys to Random Dot Motion

Chaplin

Allitt

Hagan

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Neurons in the Middle Temporal area (MT) of the primate cerebral cortex respond to moving visual stimuli.The sensitivity of MT neurons to motion signals can be characterized by using random-dot stimuli, in which the strength of the motion signal is manipulated by adding different levels of noise (elements that move in random directions). In macaques, this has allowed the calculation of "neurometric" thresholds. We characterized the responses of MT neurons in sufentanil/nitrous oxide anesthetized marmoset monkeys, a species which has attracted considerable recent interest as an animal model for vision research. We found that MT neurons show a wide range of neurometric thresholds, and that the responses of the most sensitive neurons could account for the behavioral performance of macaques and humans. We also investigated factors that contributed to the wide range of observed thresholds. The difference in firing rate between responses to motion in the preferred and null directions was the most effective predictor of neurometric threshold, whereas the direction tuning bandwidth had no correlation with the threshold. We also showed that it is possible to obtain reliable estimates of neurometric thresholds using stimuli that were not highly optimized for each neuron, as is often necessary when recording from large populations of neurons with different receptive field concurrently, as was the case in this study. These results demonstrate that marmoset MT shows an essential physiological similarity to macaque MT, and suggest that its neurons are capable of representing motion signals that allow for comparable motion-in-noise judgments. New and NoteworthyWe report the activity of neurons in marmoset MT in response to random-dot motion stimuli of varying coherence. The information carried by individual MT neurons was comparable to that of the macaque, and that the maximum firing rates were a strong predictor of sensitivity. Our study provides key information regarding the neural basis of motion perception in the marmoset, a small primate species that is becoming increasingly popular as an experimental model.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Sensitivity of Neurons in the Middle Temporal Area of Marmoset Monkeys to Random Dot Motion

Chaplin

Allitt

Hagan

et al. 2017

Preprint

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“…The neural circuits for visual motion processing are among the best understood aspects of the structure and function of the primate cerebral cortex (Figure 1C , blue areas). The primary visual cortex (V1) is the first stage of visual processing in the cerebral cortex in which direction selectivity first appears, but only a small proportion of V1 neurons are direction selective (~15%, Yu et al, 2010 ; Yu and Rosa, 2014 ; Davies et al, 2016 ). Direction selective neurons have been observed in several other visual areas (Orban et al, 1986 ; Desimone and Schein, 1987 ; Felleman and Van Essen, 1987 ; Lui et al, 2005 , 2006 ; Orban, 2008 ; Fattori et al, 2009 ; Li et al, 2013 ), but it is the middle temporal (MT) and medial superior temporal (MST) areas that appear to be most specialized for motion processing.…”

Section: Visual Motion Processing Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory and Visual Motion Processing and Integration in the Primate Cerebral Cortex

Chaplin

Rosa

Lui

2018

Front. Neural Circuits

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The ability of animals to detect motion is critical for survival, and errors or even delays in motion perception may prove costly. In the natural world, moving objects in the visual field often produce concurrent sounds. Thus, it can highly advantageous to detect motion elicited from sensory signals of either modality, and to integrate them to produce more reliable motion perception. A great deal of progress has been made in understanding how visual motion perception is governed by the activity of single neurons in the primate cerebral cortex, but far less progress has been made in understanding both auditory motion and audiovisual motion integration. Here we, review the key cortical regions for motion processing, focussing on translational motion. We compare the representations of space and motion in the visual and auditory systems, and examine how single neurons in these two sensory systems encode the direction of motion. We also discuss the way in which humans integrate of audio and visual motion cues, and the regions of the cortex that may mediate this process.

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“…Different neurons in the visual cortex can be activated by different directions of stimuli; this phenomenon is referred to as direction selectivity ( Tzvetanov, 2012 ; Chaplin et al, 2018 ). However, only a small number of neurons in the V1 area exhibit direction selectivity, although visual information from both eyes is transmitted to V1 at the first stage in primates ( Davies et al, 2016 ). Most neurons in the MT show a strong directional selectivity, which might be associated with the motion direction discrimination task ( Albright, 1984 ; Elston and Rosa, 1997 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decline of Orientation and Direction Sensitivity in the Aging Population

et al. 2021

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While the aging population is growing, our knowledge regarding age-related deterioration of visual perception remains limited. In the present study, we investigated the effects of aging on orientation and direction sensitivity in a healthy population using a weighted up–down adaptive method to improve the efficiency and reliability of the task. A total of 57 healthy participants aged 22–72 years were included and divided into old and young groups. Raw experimental data were processed using a psychometric method to determine the differences between the two groups. In the orientation task, the threshold of the discrimination angle and bias (i.e., the difference between the perceived midpoint from the logistic function and the reference point) was increased, while the lapsing rate (i.e., 1—the maximum logistic function) did not significantly change in the old group compared with the young group. In the motion direction task, the threshold, bias, and lapsing rate were significantly increased in the old group compared with the young group. These results suggest that the decreased ability of old participants in discrimination of stimulus orientation and motion direction could be related to the impaired function of visual cortex.

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Natural motion trajectory enhances the coding of speed in primate extrastriate cortex

Cited by 5 publications

References 36 publications

Sensitivity of Neurons in the Middle Temporal Area of Marmoset Monkeys to Random Dot Motion

Sensitivity of Neurons in the Middle Temporal Area of Marmoset Monkeys to Random Dot Motion

Auditory and Visual Motion Processing and Integration in the Primate Cerebral Cortex

Decline of Orientation and Direction Sensitivity in the Aging Population

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