Human superior colliculus pathways represent the form and motion of looming objects

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Computational Neuroscience

Background:

• The superior colliculus (SC) is a midbrain structure vital for threat detection and response.
• Its precise role in human cognition and emotional processing is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the superior colliculus's response to looming threats using fMRI and computational modeling.
• To understand how the SC encodes threat-related information and its connection to emotional experience.

Main Methods:

• Task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in two experiments.
• Computational modeling using task-optimized neural networks for collision detection, object recognition, and visual salience.
• Analysis of functional connectivity and self-reported emotional measures.

Main Results:

• The human superior colliculus encodes information on the motion and category of looming objects.
• Encoding models accurately predicted SC activity across individuals.
• SC responses correlated with self-reported fear, valence, arousal, and brain signatures of emotion.

Conclusions:

• The superior colliculus plays a crucial role in threat detection within broader cortico-subcortical networks.
• These findings challenge purely cortico-centric models of emotional experience.
• The SC integrates sensory information with emotional processing during threat perception.