The physiological basis for lateral interactions in contour detection

描述(由申请人提供)：我们研究的长期目标是了解早期视觉皮质中的神经元群体如何代表视觉对象，以及这些信息如何被用来指导简单任务中的行为。具体目的是评估：1)视皮层如何对简单的轮廓刺激和两个或三个轮廓刺激的组合做出反应，2)当动物参与两种类型的检测任务时，群体对轮廓刺激的活动如何变化，以及3)理想的观察者或动物如何能够利用早期视觉皮质的群体活动来执行检测任务。为了解决这些问题，当动物参与视觉检测任务时，我们使用电压敏感染料的光学成像和电生理记录来记录初级和次级视觉皮质中的群体活动。为了更完整地描述由单一轮廓刺激或轮廓刺激组合引起的视皮层活动模式，从神经元群体中进行记录是必要的。如果我们想知道视觉皮质中的群体活动实际上是如何用来指导行为的，那么在猴子身上进行这些实验是必不可少的。总体而言，我们预计这些实验将为视觉处理中的横向相互作用机制提供重要的洞察，以及早期视觉皮质中分布的皮质神经元的活动模式如何与行为相关。相关性：我们研究的目的是了解大脑皮层神经元群体代表世界上视觉对象的基本机制。了解大脑皮层如何处理信息对于理解人类行为至关重要，也对于了解影响大脑皮层的特定疾病或伤害将如何反过来影响行为至关重要。在未来，更好地了解皮质处理可能会让我们开发出更好的方法来治疗大脑疾病，或者使开发更有效的神经假体设备成为可能。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long range goal of our research is to understand how populations of neurons in early visual cortex represent visual objects, and how that information is used to guide behavior in simple tasks. The specific aims are to assess: 1) how the visual cortex responds to simple contour stimuli and to combinations of two or three contour stimuli, 2) how population activity to contour stimuli change as the animal engages in two types of detection tasks, and 3) how an ideal observer, or the animal, might be able to use the population activity in early visual cortex to perform the detection task. To address these questions we record population activity in primary and secondary visual cortex using optical imaging with voltage sensitive dyes and electrophysiological recordings as animals engage in visual detection tasks. Recording from populations of neurons is necessary to obtain a more complete description of the pattern of activity in visual cortex that results from single contour stimuli or combinations of contour stimuli. Performing these experiments in behaving monkeys is essential if we want to know how the population activity in visual cortex is actually used to guide behavior. Overall, we expect these experiments to provide significant insight into the mechanisms for lateral interactions in visual processing, and into how the pattern of activity across distributed sets of cortical neurons in early visual cortex is related to behavior. Relevance: The purpose of our research is to understand the basic mechanisms by which populations of neurons in the cerebral cortex represent visual objects in the world. Understanding how the cerebral cortex processes information is critical for understanding human behavior, and for understanding how particular diseases or injuries which affect the cerebral cortex, will in turn affect behavior. In the future, a better understanding of cortical processing may allow us to develop better ways to treat brain diseases, or make it possible to develop more effective neuroprosthetic devices.