Related Experiment Videos
Asymmetry in visual cortical circuits underlying motion-induced perceptual mislocalization
Yu-Xi Fu1, Yaosong Shen, Hongfeng Gao
1Division of Neurobiology, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-3200, USA.
Summary
Visual motion illusions, like shifts in perceived object position, are explained by new receptive field properties in the brain. These findings reveal how experience shapes neural circuits for motion perception.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Motion signals in the visual field can significantly alter the perceived positions of stationary objects.
- These motion-position illusions, including shifts towards motion direction and opposite shifts after adaptation, have poorly understood neural underpinnings.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural mechanisms responsible for motion-induced position illusions in the primary visual cortex.
- To identify novel receptive field (RF) properties that could explain these perceptual phenomena.
Main Methods:
- Recorded receptive field properties in the primary visual cortex of cats.
- Compared cat neural data with human psychophysical measurements under similar motion stimulus conditions.
Main Results:
- Identified two novel receptive field properties: motion displacement of RF opposite to motion direction and RF shift in adaptation direction.
- Demonstrated that these RF properties can largely account for observed motion-position illusions in both cats and humans.
- Showed that these RF properties imply synaptic asymmetry, predictable by spike-timing-dependent plasticity.
Conclusions:
- Motion-induced perceptual mislocalization is mediated by asymmetric cortical circuits.
- These asymmetric circuits arise naturally from experience-dependent synaptic modification during neural development.