Neuronal Synchronization in the Visual Cortex of the Alert State

警戒状态视觉皮层的神经元同步

• 批准号: 9409982
• 负责人: Charles Gray
• 金额: $ 24.87万
• 依托单位: University of California-Davis
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1994
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1994-09-01 至 1997-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9409982&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Neuronal; Synchronization; Visual; Cortex; Alert

An important part of vision is pattern recognition, so that a visual scene that contains many combinations of visual features is perceived as a coherent collection of objects. Sets of local features making up the objects in an image must be grouped according to some criteria and segregated from one another to prevent inappropriate feature conjunctions. The pattern of images falling on the retina of the eye is encoded by many thousands of nerve cells sending signals into the brain, and it is not clear how the brain integrates the information that is sent to different parts of the visual cortex. One alternative commonly accepted is that some neurons are selectively responsive to certain features of a stimulus, and the outputs from these neurons, even from widely separate areas, converge on other cells that represent "feature detectors" in a hierarchical organization of complex processing. An alternative that has recently been raised is that the integrated features that make up objects are coded by a distributed population of neurons that share synchronous activity. There is some evidence for both processes, but the mechanisms underlying the latter remain unclear. Synchrony has been observed in some cases in the visual cortex of cats and monkeys. This study determines the incidence, properties and spatial extent of neuronal synchronous firing of neurons in the visual cortex of alert animals trained to fixate their eyes on a target object. A novel multiple electrode array records the simultaneous responses of several single cells to a variety of different visual stimuli. These recordings allow tests of how well responses from different cells are correlated, and to what degree synchronous activity is present among cells in several different cortical areas. Results will be important for understanding cortical function, for sensory neuroscience and perceptual psychology in general, and for potential use in the engineering design of artificial visual systems.

视觉的一个重要部分是模式识别，因此包含许多视觉特征组合的视觉场景被视为对象的连贯集合。 组成图像中对象的局部特征集必须根据某些标准进行分组，并彼此隔离，以防止不适当的特征连接。 落在眼睛视网膜上的图像模式是由数千个神经细胞编码的，这些神经细胞将信号发送到大脑，目前还不清楚大脑如何整合发送到视觉皮层不同部分的信息。 一种普遍接受的替代方案是，一些神经元选择性地对刺激的某些特征做出反应，并且来自这些神经元的输出，即使来自广泛分离的区域，也会聚集在代表复杂处理的分层组织中的“特征检测器”的其他细胞上。 最近提出的一种替代方案是，组成对象的集成特征由共享同步活动的分布式神经元群体编码。 这两个过程都有一些证据，但后者背后的机制仍不清楚。 在某些情况下，在猫和猴子的视觉皮层中观察到了同步性。 本研究确定了警觉动物的视觉皮层神经元同步放电的发生率、性质和空间范围，这些动物被训练将眼睛固定在目标物体上。 一种新型的多电极阵列记录了几个单细胞对各种不同视觉刺激的同时反应。 这些记录可以测试不同细胞的反应之间的关联程度，以及几个不同皮层区域的细胞之间同步活动的程度。 结果将是重要的理解皮层功能，感觉神经科学和知觉心理学的一般，并在人工视觉系统的工程设计的潜在用途。