CAREER: Neural basis of visual shape perception

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。对复杂视觉形状的感知是灵长类视觉系统的标志，也是我们许多决策和行动的基础。这个CAREER项目的目标是推进对灵长类大脑如何支持这种重要视觉能力的了解。这项研究将调查大脑中一个与分析视觉形状信息有关的区域，确定其组织及其在感知中的作用。这项研究将采用一系列强有力的方法：测量和干扰行为过程中特定脑细胞子集的活动。该项目还包括教育活动，向公众传播研究的核心概念。这些教育活动将主要针对纽约市低收入社区的大学预科（K-12）学生。新的教材、展览演示和实验室研讨会将与非营利组织“BioBus”以及哥伦比亚大学祖克曼研究所的公共推广项目合作开发。每项活动都将突出研究的一个核心原则，从而将研究和教育卓有成效地结合起来。这些教育努力的共同成果将是加强科学的多样性、公平性、包容性和可及性。CAREER项目致力于加深我们对灵长类动物视觉形状感知的神经基础的理解。研究将集中于阐明由视觉皮质区v4进行的神经计算，该区域富含选择视觉形状信息的神经元。这项研究将解决这一皮层区域的两个主要未知问题。第一类实验将使用层流记录来表征横跨V4皮质层的形状选择神经元的组织。这些实验的发现有可能阐明视觉形状分析背后的回路水平机制，并可能揭示灵长类动物高阶皮层回路的关键组织原理。第二类实验将使用光遗传沉默来评估V4活性在感知形状细微差异能力中的因果作用。这些实验的发现有可能确立这一皮层区域在视觉形状感知中的直接作用。这些研究努力的共同成果将改变我们对灵长类大脑皮层视觉形状处理的理解水平，从一个主要的描述性水平到一个更深层次的机械水平。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2.The perception of complex visual shapes is a hallmark of the primate visual system and a foundation for many of our decisions and actions. The goal of this CAREER project is to advance knowledge of how the primate brain supports this important visual capacity. The research will investigate a brain region involved in the analysis of visual shape information, identifying its organization and its role in perception. The research will employ a powerful combination of approaches: measuring and perturbing the activity of specific subsets of brain cells during behavior. The project also includes educational activities for disseminating core concepts of the research to the general public. The educational activities will focus on pre-college (K–12) students in predominantly low-income neighborhoods of New York City. New teaching materials, exhibit demos and lab-based workshops will be developed in collaboration with the non-profit organization “BioBus” and with public outreach programs at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute. Each activity will highlight a core principle of the research, thereby creating a fruitful integration of research and education. The collective outcome of these educational efforts will be to enhance diversity, equity, inclusion and access in science.The CAREER project endeavors to deepen our understanding of the neural basis of visual shape perception in primates. The research will focus on elucidating the neural computations performed by visual cortical area V4—a region enriched in neurons selective for visual shape information. The research will address two major unknowns about this cortical area. The first class of experiments will use laminar recordings to characterize the organization of shape-selective neurons across V4 cortical layers. Findings from these experiments have the potential to clarify the circuit-level mechanisms underlying visual shape analysis, and may reveal key organizing principles of higher-order cortical circuits in primates. The second class of experiments will use optogenetic silencing to assess the causal role of V4 activity in the ability to perceive fine differences in shape. Findings from these experiments have the potential to establish a direct role for this cortical area in visual shape perception. The collective outcome of these research efforts will be to transform the level at which we understand visual shape processing in the primate cerebral cortex, from a largely descriptive level to a deeper mechanistic one.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.