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Related Experiment Videos

Direction-selective visual responses in macaque superior colliculus induced by behavioral training.

Gregory D Horwitz1, Aaron P Batista, William T Newsome

  • 1Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. horwitz@salk.edu

Neuroscience Letters
|August 4, 2004
PubMed
Summary

Extensive training can induce specific visual responses in superior colliculus (SC) neurons. Directional visual responses were absent when motion and saccade directions were dissociated, supporting a learned association hypothesis.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Primate Vision
  • Learning and Memory

Background:

  • A subpopulation of neurons in the monkey superior colliculus (SC) exhibits directionally selective visual responses.
  • These responses were observed in monkeys trained on a visual direction discrimination task.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To test the hypothesis that SC neurons develop learned associations between visual motion direction and saccade direction.
  • To investigate the role of extensive training in inducing specific visual responses.

Main Methods:

  • Monkeys were trained on two tasks: one with aligned motion and saccade directions, and another with dissociated directions.
  • Neural activity in the SC was recorded during these tasks.

Main Results:

Related Experiment Videos

  • Directionally selective visual responses were present in monkeys trained on the aligned task.
  • Strongly directional visual responses were absent in monkeys trained on the dissociated task.

Conclusions:

  • Extensive training can induce highly specific, learned visual responses in a subpopulation of SC neurons.
  • The findings support the role of associative learning in shaping neural responses within the SC.