The neural mechanisms of duration on contrast perception in natural vision

自然视觉对比感知持续时间的神经机制

• 批准号: 1523614
• 负责人: Stephen Macknik
• 金额: $ 54.07万
• 依托单位: SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2020-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1523614&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: neural; mechanisms; duration; contrast; perception

The visibility of an object is determined by its contrast against the background. But there is another critical factor in contrast perception that is less well understood: the object's duration. Eye movements, motion of the object in the world, and lighting that changes over time, such as flicker in artificial lighting, all act to vary the amount of time that the object shines photons onto the photoreceptors of the retina. Psychological experiments showed that the apparent contrast, the salience of the object against its background, is highest when an object is presented for ~60-~90 milliseconds and reduced if the object is presented for too short or too long a duration. Dr. Stephen Macknik and his colleagues at the Barrow Neurological Institute will investigate the neural physiological processes underlying these temporal effects by recording electrical activity of single neurons from the visual cortex. This project will provide the empirical data leading to a mechanistic account of how these temporal effects occur. Understanding the neural mechanisms that determine optimal duration of object presentation may allow the discovery of the optimal flickering rate in the artificial lighting. It is possible that temporal dynamics in lighting that is different from what is used in today's flickering lighting can support optimal perception and at the same time save power. That is, if visual lighting is optimized to human perception, less electrical current could be used in lighting devices to achieve the same amount of apparent contrast as in current "unoptimized" artificial lighting dynamics. To investigate the neural mechanisms associated with optimal stimulus durations, the investigators will record from the ON versus OFF neurons in the primary visual cortex (area V1) that increase and decrease their firing rates in response to light increments and decrements respectively. They will test the hypothesis that the interplay between these two types of neurons will explain the variations in perceived contrast associated with different stimulus durations. To ensure that the findings are applicable to real world scenarios such as lighting in the office and home, the investigators will use not only carefully controlled visual stimuli (Objective 1) but also visual stimuli from natural scenes (Objective 2). Finally, the investigators will determine how higher level cognitive functions, specifically attention, modulates the interactions between both single ON and OFF neurons and populations of ON and OFF neurons (Objective 3). Contrast perception is fundamental to all vision, normal or diseased. Yet the large body of scientific literature has mainly focused on contrast across visual space and little is known about how contrast perception vary with stimulus duration. The current project fills this major knowledge gap by taking the temporal aspect of contrast perception into consideration and suggesting new roles for the well studied ON and OFF neurons.

对象的可见性由其与背景的对比度决定。但在对比度感知中还有另一个关键因素，但人们对此知之甚少：物体的持续时间。眼睛的运动，物体在世界上的运动，以及随时间变化的照明，如人工照明中的闪烁，都会改变物体将光子照射到视网膜感光器上的时间量。心理学实验表明，当物体呈现60-90毫秒时，物体相对于其背景的明显对比度最高，如果物体呈现的时间太短或太长，则会降低。巴罗神经研究所的Stephen Macknik博士和他的同事们将通过记录视觉皮质单个神经元的电活动来研究这些时间效应背后的神经生理过程。这个项目将提供经验数据，从而机械地解释这些时间效应是如何发生的。了解确定物体呈现的最佳持续时间的神经机制可能允许发现人工照明中的最佳闪烁速率。照明中的时间动态与当今闪烁照明中使用的不同，这是可能的，它可以支持最佳感知，同时节省电力。也就是说，如果视觉照明是根据人的感知进行优化的，那么照明设备中使用的电流就可以减少，以获得与当前未优化的人工照明动态相同的表观对比度。为了研究与最佳刺激持续时间相关的神经机制，研究人员将记录初级视觉皮质(V1区)的ON和OFF神经元，这些神经元分别对光的增加和减少做出反应，从而增加和减少它们的放电率。他们将测试一种假设，即这两种类型的神经元之间的相互作用将解释与不同刺激持续时间相关的感知对比度的变化。为了确保研究结果适用于真实世界的情景，如办公室和家庭中的照明，调查人员不仅将使用精心控制的视觉刺激(目标1)，还将使用来自自然场景的视觉刺激(目标2)。最后，研究人员将确定更高水平的认知功能，特别是注意力，如何调节单个ON和OFF神经元之间的相互作用，以及ON和OFF神经元群体之间的相互作用(目标3)。对比度知觉是所有视觉的基础，无论是正常的还是疾病的。然而，大量的科学文献主要关注视觉空间的对比度，对对比度知觉如何随着刺激持续时间的变化知之甚少。目前的项目通过考虑对比度知觉的时间方面来填补这一主要知识空白，并为研究良好的ON和OFF神经元提供新的角色。

项目成果

An oculomotor signature as a fraud-resistant tool for biometric verification

动眼神经签名作为生物识别验证的防欺诈工具

• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting 2018
• 作者: Brunet, N;Alexander, R. G;Martinez-Conde, Susana;Macknik, Stephen
• 通讯作者: Macknik, Stephen

In Vivo Fiber-Coupled Pre-Clinical Confocal Laser-scanning Endomicroscopy (pCLE) of Hippocampal Capillaries in Awake Mice

清醒小鼠海马毛细血管的体内光纤耦合临床前共焦激光扫描内镜检查 (pCLE)

• DOI: 10.3791/57220
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: JoVE
• 作者: Leal-Campanario, Rocio;Martinez-Conde, Susana;Macknik, Stephen L.
• 通讯作者: Macknik, Stephen L.

Advanced Circuit and Cellular Imaging Methods in Nonhuman Primates

• DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1168-19.2019
• 发表时间: 2019-10-16
• 期刊: JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
• 影响因子: 5.3
• 作者: Macknik, Stephen L.;Alexander, Robert G.;Martinez-Conde, Susana
• 通讯作者: Martinez-Conde, Susana

Area V1 responses to illusory corner-folds in Vasarely’s nested squares and the Alternating Brightness Star illusions

V1 区对 Vasarely 嵌套方块中虚幻的角折叠和交替亮度星幻象的响应

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0210941
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: PLOS ONE
• 影响因子: 3.7
• 作者: Martinez-Conde, Susana;McCamy, Michael B.;Troncoso, Xoana G.;Otero-Millan, Jorge;Macknik, Stephen L.
• 通讯作者: Macknik, Stephen L.