Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 13, 2026

Using Eye-tracking to Assess the Relative Importance of Visual and Vestibular Input to Subcortical Motion Processing in the Roll Plane
Published on: August 22, 2025
Neuronal thresholds and choice-related activity of otolith afferent fibers during heading perception
Xiong-jie Yu1, J David Dickman2, Gregory C DeAngelis3
1Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience and Technology, Qiushi Academy for Advanced Studies, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province 310027, China; Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030; and yuxiongj@zju.edu.cn angelaki@bcm.edu.
Abstract:
How activity of sensory neurons leads to perceptual decisions remains a challenge to understand. Correlations between choices and single neuron firing rates have been found early in vestibular processing, in the brainstem and cerebellum. To investigate the origins of choice-related activity, we have recorded from otolith afferent fibers while animals performed a fine heading discrimination task. We find that afferent fibers have similar discrimination thresholds as central cells, and the most sensitive fibers have thresholds that are only twofold or threefold greater than perceptual thresholds. Unlike brainstem and cerebellar nuclei neurons, spike counts from afferent fibers do not exhibit trial-by-trial correlations with perceptual decisions. This finding may reflect the fact that otolith afferent responses are poorly suited for driving heading perception because they fail to discriminate self-motion from changes in orientation relative to gravity. Alternatively, if choice probabilities reflect top-down inference signals, they are not relayed to the vestibular periphery.
Related Concept Videos
Equilibrium and Balance
The Vestibular System
Major Somatic Sensory Pathways
The Cochlea
Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by...

