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Updated: Jan 18, 2026

Investigating Object Representations in the Macaque Dorsal Visual Stream Using Single-unit Recordings
Published on: August 1, 2018
Visual objects refine head direction coding
Dominique Siegenthaler1,2,3,4, Henry Denny4, Sofía Skromne Carrasco4
1Brain-Wide Networks Group, Department of Ophthalmology, University Medical Center Göttingen, Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Optogenetic Therapies, Göttingen, Germany.
None:
Animals use visual objects to guide navigation-related behaviors. However, visual object-preferring areas have yet to be described in the mouse brain, limiting our understanding of how visual objects affect spatial navigation system processing. Using functional ultrasound imaging, we identified brain areas that were preferentially activated by images of objects compared with their scrambled versions. Whereas visual cortex did not show a preference, areas associated with spatial navigation were preferentially activated by visual objects. Electrophysiological recordings in postsubiculum, the cortical head direction (HD) system hub, confirmed a preference for visual objects in both HD cells and fast-spiking interneurons. In freely moving animals, visual objects increased firing rates of HD cells aligned with a visual object but decreased activity in HD cells coding for other directions.
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