Discrimination of object orientation by visual cortex

描述（由申请人提供）：拟定研究的目标是 描述颞下皮层和顶叶皮层（区域）的作用 LIP）在物体定向辨别中的作用。在动物实验中， 研究表明，颞叶皮层的病变，同时破坏了能力， 区分不同的物体，保持完整的区分能力， 在同一物体的不同方向之间。相反， 顶叶皮层损害物体定向辨别，但保留物体 识别.在人类临床研究中也获得了类似的结果。 因此，似乎有理由假设，客体的区分 定向主要涉及顶叶而不是颞下（IT）皮层。到 为了验证这一假设，我们将记录IT和LIP区神经元的活动 猕猴在固定和物体定向过程中的行为 辨别任务。猴子最初将被训练来区分 十个物体的不同方向。训练后， 将使用细胞外电生理记录收集IT和LIP 技术.这些数据将被分析，以测试两个预测：（a）神经元 LIP中神经元比IT和（B）中的神经元对物体定向更具选择性 LIP中的神经元活动与猴子的相关性更好？S 方向辨别能力比IT中的神经元活动更强。 这些研究的结果将阐明对象取向的方式， 是在大脑中编码并提供对过程本质的洞察 顶叶损伤后受损

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of the proposed studies is to characterize the role of the inferotemporal cortex and parietal cortex (area LIP) in the discrimination of object orientation. It has been shown in animal studies that lesions of the temporal cortex, while disrupting the ability to discriminate among different objects, leave intact the ability to discriminate among different orientations of the same object. Conversely, lesions of parietal cortex impair object orientation discrimination but spare object recognition. Parallel results have been obtained in clinical studies of humans. Thus it seems reasonable to hypothesize that the discrimination of object orientation involves primarily parietal and not inferotemporal (IT) cortex. To test this hypothesis, we will record the activity of neurons in IT and area LIP of the macaque monkey during the performance of fixation and object orientation discrimination tasks. Monkeys will be initially trained to discriminate between different orientations of ten objects. Following training, neural activity in IT and LIP will be collected using extracellular electrophysiological recording techniques. The data will be analyzed to test two predictions: (a) that neurons in LIP are more selective for object orientation than neurons in IT and (b) that neuronal activity in LIP is better correlated with the monkey?s orientation discrimination performance than neuronal activity in IT. The results of these studies will elucidate the manner in which object orientation is encode in the brain and provide insight into the nature of processes impaired following parietal lobe injury.