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On the Role of LGN/V1 Spontaneous Activity as an Innate Learning Pattern for Visual Development
Sahar Behpour1, David J Field2, Mark V Albert3,4
1Department of Information Science, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, United States.
Frontiers in Physiology
|November 15, 2021
Summary
Spontaneous neural activity, like retinal waves, trains the visual system before and after eye-opening. This innate learning mechanism is also likely present in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and V1 for visual development.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Computational Neuroscience
- Developmental Neuroscience
Background:
- Correlated spontaneous neural activity is crucial for visual development.
- The statistical structure of neural activity patterns is increasingly understood.
- Previous models used retinal waves to train the visual cortex (V1).
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the role of spontaneous activity in later visual development.
- To investigate the potential of lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) activity as a training pattern.
- To apply an efficient coding paradigm to understand LGN/V1 development.
Main Methods:
- Review of computational studies on endogenous neural activity.
- Analysis of spontaneous activity patterns in the LGN.
- Application of efficient coding principles.
Main Results:
- Spontaneous activity can train visual systems both pre- and post-eye-opening.
- LGN activity exhibits properties suitable for a developmental training pattern.
- The same learning algorithm can be applied across different developmental stages.
Conclusions:
- Innate learning via spontaneous activity is a plausible mechanism in later visual development.
- LGN spontaneous activity likely plays a key role in training V1.
- Further research using efficient coding is warranted to explore this paradigm.
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