Topic: visual responses

Perceptual decision-making is crucial for survival, requiring the integration of dynamic sensory evidence from the environment with internal state variables (e.g. context, priors, value) to choose an appropriate action plan. Neural correlates of perceptual decisions are more distributed than once thought, having been found within the cortex, striatum, and superior colliculus (SC). Recent work has suggested a potentially novel node in this network - the midbrain reticular nucleus (MRN) - which was one of the few regions that encoded visual and action selection signals in a brain-wide survey of

The superior colliculus (SC) is a major recipient of visual input in the mouse and controls innate approach and avoidance behaviours. Neurons in the superficial SC (sSC), which receives direct input from the retina, do not only process visual stimuli, but are also modulated by the animal’s running speed and pupil-linked arousal, similar to modulations observed in the primary visual cortex. While these observations were made during passive viewing of visual stimuli, a major purpose of vision is to guide behaviour. We therefore asked whether, in the context of a behavioural task, visual activity

Neural responses in the visual system are usually not purely visual but depend on behavioural and internal states such as arousal. This dependence is seen both in primary visual cortex (V1) and in subcortical brain structures receiving direct retinal input. In this talk, I will show that modulation by behavioural state arises as early as in the output of the retina.To measure retinal activity in the awake, intact brain, we imaged the synaptic boutons of retinal axons in the superficial superior colliculus (sSC) of mice. The activity of about half of the boutons depended not only on vision but

Recent research in awake, behaving organisms revealed the strong modulatory effects of movement on sensory coding. Surprisingly, these effects are not consistent across species. For example, in rodents and insects locomotion increases the magnitude of visual responses [1-3], while in primates, locomotion has a weak suppressive influence [4]. These differences raise intriguing questions about the computational purpose of such modulations and the generality of the underlying principles of sensory processing. Here, we address these questions from a theoretical perspective. Our approach is groun

While sensory coding is traditionally thought of as a process independent of behavioral state, modern studies showcase potent modulatory effects of movement on sensory neurons. Intriguingly, these effects are not uniform and can differ between species. In insects and rodents, visual responses increase dramatically when the animal is moving, whereas in primates locomotion has a weak impact on responses in the primary visual cortex (V1). These differences raise questions about the existence and universality of computational principles underlying sensory coding during behavior. We take a normativ