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Updated: Jul 6, 2025
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Monocular Visual Deprivation and Ocular Dominance Plasticity Measurement in the Mouse Primary Visual Cortex
Published on: February 8, 2020
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The logic of recurrent circuits in the primary visual cortex.
Ian Antón Oldenburg1,2,3, William D Hendricks4,5, Gregory Handy6,7,8
1Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA. ian.oldenburg@rutgers.edu.
Nature Neuroscience
|January 3, 2024
Summary
Recurrent activity in the visual cortex influences perception. Its effect depends on neuron location and feature tuning, revealing a spatial logic governing neural network interactions.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Computational Neuroscience
- Visual System
Background:
- Recurrent neural activity is crucial for visual perception.
- The precise rules governing recurrent activity's influence are not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To elucidate the rules governing the impact of recurrent activity in the visual cortex.
- To differentiate the effects of recurrent activity from external visual stimuli.
Main Methods:
- Utilized ensemble-specific two-photon optogenetics in the mouse visual cortex.
- Investigated the influence of spatial arrangement and feature preference of neuronal ensembles.
Main Results:
- Recurrent activity induced suppression beyond 30µm and activation in nearby, similarly tuned cells.
- Compact, cotuned ensembles caused net suppression in non-similarly tuned cells, while diffuse ensembles caused activation.
- Computational modeling indicated local excitatory connectivity and specific inhibitory neuron convergence explain these outcomes.
Conclusions:
- The spatial arrangement and feature preference of cortical ensembles dictate their impact on local recurrent activity.
- A clear organizational logic underlies recurrent cortical processing in the visual system.
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