“…The requirement of this frequency of ORN spikes for a continuous perception of smell is similar to the 60 Hz frame-rate of visual stimuli required for visual perception of a movie. The induction of semblances at the inter-postsynaptic functional LINKs in the glomerulus agrees with the previous assessment that the glomeruli are discrete processing channels (Wilson 2007 ). Fig.…”
Perception is a first-person internal sensation induced within the nervous system at the time of arrival of sensory stimuli from objects in the environment. Lack of access to the first-person properties has limited viewing perception as an emergent property and it is currently being studied using third-person observed findings from various levels. One feasible approach to understand its mechanism is to build a hypothesis for the specific conditions and required circuit features of the nodal points where the mechanistic operation of perception take place for one type of sensation in one species and to verify it for the presence of comparable circuit properties for perceiving a different sensation in a different species. The present work explains visual perception in mammalian nervous system from a first-person frame of reference and provides explanations for the homogeneity of perception of visual stimuli above flicker fusion frequency, the perception of objects at locations different from their actual position, the smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements, the perception of object borders, and perception of pressure phosphenes. Using results from temporal resolution studies and the known details of visual cortical circuitry, explanations are provided for (a) the perception of rapidly changing visual stimuli, (b) how the perception of objects occurs in the correct orientation even though, according to the third-person view, activity from the visual stimulus reaches the cortices in an inverted manner and (c) the functional significance of well-conserved columnar organization of the visual cortex. A comparable circuitry detected in a different nervous system in a remote species—the olfactory circuitry of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster—provides an opportunity to explore circuit functions using genetic manipulations, which, along with high-resolution microscopic techniques and lipid membrane interaction studies, will be able to verify the structure–function details of the presented mechanism of perception.
“…The requirement of this frequency of ORN spikes for a continuous perception of smell is similar to the 60 Hz frame-rate of visual stimuli required for visual perception of a movie. The induction of semblances at the inter-postsynaptic functional LINKs in the glomerulus agrees with the previous assessment that the glomeruli are discrete processing channels (Wilson 2007 ). Fig.…”
Perception is a first-person internal sensation induced within the nervous system at the time of arrival of sensory stimuli from objects in the environment. Lack of access to the first-person properties has limited viewing perception as an emergent property and it is currently being studied using third-person observed findings from various levels. One feasible approach to understand its mechanism is to build a hypothesis for the specific conditions and required circuit features of the nodal points where the mechanistic operation of perception take place for one type of sensation in one species and to verify it for the presence of comparable circuit properties for perceiving a different sensation in a different species. The present work explains visual perception in mammalian nervous system from a first-person frame of reference and provides explanations for the homogeneity of perception of visual stimuli above flicker fusion frequency, the perception of objects at locations different from their actual position, the smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements, the perception of object borders, and perception of pressure phosphenes. Using results from temporal resolution studies and the known details of visual cortical circuitry, explanations are provided for (a) the perception of rapidly changing visual stimuli, (b) how the perception of objects occurs in the correct orientation even though, according to the third-person view, activity from the visual stimulus reaches the cortices in an inverted manner and (c) the functional significance of well-conserved columnar organization of the visual cortex. A comparable circuitry detected in a different nervous system in a remote species—the olfactory circuitry of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster—provides an opportunity to explore circuit functions using genetic manipulations, which, along with high-resolution microscopic techniques and lipid membrane interaction studies, will be able to verify the structure–function details of the presented mechanism of perception.
“…Our simulation results show that inhibitory local neurons spread inhibition among all glomeruli and for all odors. Projection neuron responses are decreased relatively uniformly when lateral excitatory connections are spatially widespread and homogeneous in strength as reported in the literature (16). We investigated the role of excitatory local neurons in our network model in shaping glomeruli output.…”
Previous modeling studies have demonstrated that lateral inhibition contributes to enhanced precision in sensory networks. That is, inhibitory connections reduce the spread of activity and repress neighboring cells, increasing the reliability of a sensory response. However, much less is understood about how connections that spread activity might contribute to the processing of sensory stimuli in the context of a sensory discrimination task. In this work, we examine the role of excitatory connections and gap junctions in network dynamics and some contributions to sensory discrimination.
“…In addition, it is feasible to perform electrophysiological recordings from identified Drosophila olfactory neurons in vivo. Considerable progress has already been made in describing how odors are represented by neural activity in this organism (Berry et al, 2008;Fiala, 2007;Hallem and Carlson, 2006;Wilson, 2007). An important current challenge is to understand the relationship between sensory neuron activity and behavior.…”
There was an error published in J. Exp. Biol. 213,[3625][3626][3627][3628][3629][3630][3631][3632][3633][3634][3635] In the original published version of Fig. 4C, the color code of the y-axes was inadvertently switched. The left y-axis should be red and the right y-axis should be gray. A corrected version of the figure is shown here.
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