Toward an animal model of visual simulation

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Abstract/Summary The goal of this project is to develop an animal model for visual simulation. In particular, we aim to show that animals, like humans, can engage in extended visualization of events not present in the external world. This capacity is essential, as it allow animals to test strategies and reason about the world using internal visual machinery. Until now, almost all exploration of visual simulation has been carried out in humans, as verbal instructions are the most common way to evoke controlled imagined experiences. Here we introduce a novel task, initially tested in humans, to non-human primate subjects. In Aim 1, we will show that their performance in this task mirrors that of human subjects. We will then have these trained animal subjects participate in awake fMRI studies while performing this task, and associated controls, in order to test the hypothesis that the same visual circuits involved in active perception of dynamic visual events are recruited during internally driven visual simulation of these events (Aim 2). Successful completion of these aims will provide a key starting point for the first systematic neurophysiological investigations of visual mental simulation at the single neuron level. This has significant implications for understanding the rich interplay between the visual system and higher mental function in both normal perception and neurological disease.