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Prefrontal activity sharpens spatial sensitivity of extrastriate neurons.
M Isabel Vanegas1, Amir Akbarian1, Kelsey L Clark1
1Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84132, USA.
Biorxiv : the Preprint Server for Biology
|November 14, 2023
Summary
Frontal Eye Field (FEF) inactivation unexpectedly increased V4 neuron activity and receptive field size. However, this led to reduced spatial sensitivity, demonstrating FEF
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Visual Neuroscience
- Primate Neurophysiology
Background:
- The prefrontal cortex influences visual signal representation in extrastriate areas like V4.
- The Frontal Eye Field (FEF) is hypothesized to mediate prefrontal control over visual processing.
- The specific aspects of extrastriate sensory representation influenced by FEF remain unclear.
Approach:
- Causal manipulation via FEF inactivation in macaque monkeys with overlapping FEF and V4 receptive fields.
- Recorded V4 neuronal activity before and after FEF inactivation.
- Assessed V4 spatial sensitivity through response gain, receptive field spread, coding capacity, and spatial discriminability.
Key Points:
- FEF inactivation led to increased spontaneous and visually-evoked V4 activity and enlarged V4 receptive fields.
- Despite increased activity, V4 neurons exhibited reduced response gain after FEF inactivation.
- Spatial discriminability and coding capacity of V4 neurons significantly decreased post-FEF inactivation.
Conclusions:
- FEF activity is necessary for shaping the spatial response properties of extrastriate neurons.
- FEF inputs play a critical role in sharpening the spatial sensitivity of V4 neuronal responses.
- This study highlights the crucial role of FEF in precise visual spatial information processing.
Keywords:
FEFV4cortexfeedbackinactivationprimatereceptive fieldspatial sensitivityvisionvisual processingMore Related Videos
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