Topic: visual information

Kenneth Harris discusses what simultaneous recordings from many cells reveal about visual information encoded by neuronal populations.

The science of the retina has reached an interesting stage of completion. There exists now a consensus standard model of this neural system - at least in the minds of many researchers - that serves as a baseline against which to evaluate new claims. The standard model links phenomena from molecular biophysics, cell biology, neuroanatomy, synaptic physiology, circuit function, and visual psychophysics. It is further supported by a normative theory explaining what the purpose is of processing visual information this way. Most new reports of retinal phenomena fit squarely within the standard mode

The vertebrate retina is an important outpost of the central nervous system, responsible for the perception and transmission of visual information. It consists of five different types of neurons that reproducibly laminate into three layers, a process of crucial importance for the organ’s function. Unsurprisingly, impaired fate decisions as well as impaired neuronal migrations and lamination lead to impaired retinal function. However, how processes are coordinated at the cellular and tissue level and how variable or robust retinal formation is, is currently still underexplored. In my lab, we a

The involvement of early visual cortex during the short-term maintenance of visual information has been demonstrated in human fMRI studies [1,2]. However, evidence for sustained, stimulus-related neuronal firing in primate V1 is limited [3,4]. Recently, fading traces of visual information have been shown in the population code of primate V1 neurons for ~1.5 seconds after visual stimulus presentation in delayed match to sample and attention tasks [5]. The relatively long time-course of these fading memories make it unlikely to be a neural correlate of iconic memory [6], but may be related to “f