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Related Experiment Video

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Visualization of Cortical Modules in Flattened Mammalian Cortices

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Published on: January 22, 2018

Endogenous modulation of human visual cortex activity improves perception at twilight.

Lorenzo Cordani^1,2, Enzo Tagliazucchi^1,3,4, Céline Vetter^5,6

¹Cognitive Neuroscience Group, Brain Imaging Center, Goethe University, 60528, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Nature Communications

|April 12, 2018

Summary

Human perception changes with light, but brain mechanisms are unclear. This study found that reduced brain activity at dawn and dusk improves vision, an anticipatory mechanism for changing light conditions.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Perception Science
Chronobiology

Background:

Rhythmic changes in ambient lighting significantly impact human perception, especially visual processing.
The circadian system's anticipation of daylight changes is vital for survival, yet the neural underpinnings remain largely unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the neural bases of time-of-day-dependent modulation in human perception.
To understand how the brain adapts to changing light conditions throughout the day.

Main Methods:

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed to study brain dynamics.
Data were collected during resting-state and near-threshold visual perception tasks at six different times of day.

Main Results:

Resting-state signal variance decreased endogenously at dawn and dusk, particularly in sensory cortices.
Perception-related signal variance in visual cortices also decreased and negatively correlated with detection performance.
This suggests an anticipatory mechanism compensating for reduced visual signal quality.

Conclusions:

Decreases in spontaneous neural activity enhance close-to-threshold visual perception.
The brain exhibits time-of-day-dependent modulations in neural activity to optimize sensory processing.
Findings reveal an endogenous mechanism for adapting perception to environmental light cycles.