Acetylcholinesterase activity in visual cortex structures during early visual deprivation

By means of quantitative histochemical methods it has been shown that an early photic deprivation (animals kept in a dark chamber for two months after their birth) leads to a decrease in the activity level of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) in the visual area of the cerebral cortex. With the recovery of the visual function (animals kept in normal photic conditions for two weeks) the AChE activity becomes markedly normalized. The obtained data allow to suggest that the decrease in AChE activity due to deprivation is functionally determined.     

Cue-triggered activity replay in human early visual cortex

The recall of learned temporal sequences by a visual cue is an important form of experience-based neural plasticity. Here we observed such reactivation in awake human visual cortex using intracranial recording. After repeated exposure to a moving dot, a flash of the dot was able to trigger neural reactivation in the downstream receptive field along the motion path. This effect was observed only when the cue appeared near the receptive field. The estimated traveling speed was faster compared to the activation induced by the real motion. We suggest a range-limited, time-compressed reactivation as a result of repeated visual exposure in awake human visual cortex.     

Responses to lightness variations in early human visual cortex

Lightness is the apparent reflectance of a surface, and it depends not only on the actual luminance of the surface but also on the context in which the surface is viewed [1-10]. The cortical mechanisms of lightness processing are largely unknown, and the role of early cortical areas is still a matter of debate [11-17]. We studied the cortical responses to lightness variations in early stages of the human visual system with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while observers were performing a demanding fixation task. The set of dynamically presented visual stimuli included the rectangular version of the classic Craik-O'Brien stimulus [3, 18, 19] and a variant that led to a weaker lightness effect, as well as a pattern with actual luminance variations. We found that the cortical activity in retinotopic areas, including the primary visual cortex (V1), is correlated with context-dependent lightness variations.     

Contrast adaptation and representation in human early visual cortex

The human visual system can distinguish variations in image contrast over a much larger range than measurements of the static relationship between contrast and response in visual cortex would suggest. This discrepancy may be explained if adaptation serves to re-center contrast response functions around the ambient contrast, yet experiments on humans have yet to report such an effect. By using event-related fMRI and a data-driven analysis approach, we found that contrast response functions in V1, V2, and V3 shift to approximately center on the adapting contrast. Furthermore, we discovered that, unlike earlier areas, human V4 (hV4) responds positively to contrast changes, whether increments or decrements, suggesting that hV4 does not faithfully represent contrast, but instead responds to salient changes. These findings suggest that the visual system discounts slow uninformative changes in contrast with adaptation, yet remains exquisitely sensitive to changes that may signal important events in the environment.     

Neural circuit models for computations in early visual cortex

Some cortical circuit models study the mechanisms of the transforms from visual inputs to neural responses. They model neural properties such as feature tunings, pattern sensitivities, and how they depend on intracortical connections and contextual inputs. Other cortical circuit models are more concerned with computational goals of the transform from visual inputs to neural responses, or the roles of the neural responses in the visual behavior. The appropriate complexity of a cortical circuit model depends on the question asked. Modeling neural circuits of many interacting hypercolumns is a necessary challenge, which is providing insights to cortical computations, such as visual saliency computation, and linking physiology with global visual cognitive behavior such as bottom-up attentional selection.     

Long-range, pattern-dependent contextual effects in early human visual cortex

The standard view of neurons in early visual cortex is that they behave like localized feature detectors. Here we demonstrate that processing in early visual areas goes beyond feature detection by showing that neural responses are greater when a feature deviates from its context compared to when it does not deviate from its context. Using psychophysics, fMRI, and electroencephalography methodologies, we measured neural responses to an oriented Gabor ("target") embedded in various visual patterns as defined by the relative orientation of flanking stimuli. We first show using psychophysical contrast adaptation and fMRI that a target that differs from its context results in more neural activity compared to a target that is contained within an alternating sequence, suggesting that neurons in early visual cortex are sensitive to large-scale orientation patterns. Next, we use event-related potentials to show that orientation deviations affect the earliest sensory components of the target response. Finally, we use forced-choice classification of "noise" stimuli to show that we are more likely to "see" orientations that deviate from the context. Our results suggest that early visual cortex is sensitive to global patterns in images in a way that is markedly different from the predictions of standard models of cortical visual processing.     

Distribution of attention modulates salience signals in early visual cortex

Previous research has shown that the extent to which people spread attention across the visual field plays a crucial role in visual selection and the occurrence of bottom-up driven attentional capture. Consistent with previous findings, we show that when attention was diffusely distributed across the visual field while searching for a shape singleton, an irrelevant salient color singleton captured attention. However, while using the very same displays and task, no capture was observed when observers initially focused their attention at the center of the display. Using event-related fMRI, we examined the modulation of retinotopic activity related to attentional capture in early visual areas. Because the sensory display characteristics were identical in both conditions, we were able to isolate the brain activity associated with exogenous attentional capture. The results show that spreading of attention leads to increased bottom-up exogenous capture and increased activity in visual area V3 but not in V2 and V1.     

Cortisol reduces plasticity in the kitten visual cortex.

We investigated the effect of elevated levels of cortisol on plasticity in the visual cortex of the cat. Animals were given daily injections of cortisol i.m. for 20 days starting around 35 days of age. After 10 days they were monocularly deprived, and after an additional 10 days recordings were made from the visual cortex to construct an ocular dominance histogram. The results were compared with those from normal animals of the same age, and with animals monocularly deprived for the same period but not treated with cortisol. Cortisol reduced the ocular dominance shift in a dose-dependent manner, but did not totally abolish it even at the highest doses used. Two other series of animals were recorded, one slightly later in the critical period and one slightly earlier, with care taken to give cortisol before the animals were exposed to light in the morning. In both cases, cortisol reduced the ocular dominance shift but did not abolish it. To interpret these results, we measured levels of plasma cortisol in normal cats of various ages. Average levels were fairly constant between birth and 12 months of age (0.5-1 microgram/dl), and increased slightly after that, but there was a large variation between animals. Thus elevated levels of cortisol can have a substantial effect on plasticity in the visual cortex of the cat, but the decline of the critical period for plasticity between 6 weeks and 3-5 months of age does not seem to be due to a rise in cortisol levels during this time.     

Origin of orientation tuning in the visual cortex.

The results of recent experiments have thrown new light on the neuronal connections underlying orientation-selective responses in the primary visual cortex of adult animals. The pattern of afferent input from the lateral geniculate nucleus to the cortex appears to be specific for orientation, while intracortical inhibitory connections appear to be non-specific in this respect. Experimental and theoretical studies have suggested that the development of cortical cell orientation tuning is an activity-dependent process.     

Rapid and reversible recruitment of early visual cortex for touch

Background

The loss of vision has been associated with enhanced performance in non-visual tasks such as tactile discrimination and sound localization. Current evidence suggests that these functional gains are linked to the recruitment of the occipital visual cortex for non-visual processing, but the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying these crossmodal changes remain uncertain. One possible explanation is that visual deprivation is associated with an unmasking of non-visual input into visual cortex.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We investigated the effect of sudden, complete and prolonged visual deprivation (five days) in normally sighted adult individuals while they were immersed in an intensive tactile training program. Following the five-day period, blindfolded subjects performed better on a Braille character discrimination task. In the blindfold group, serial fMRI scans revealed an increase in BOLD signal within the occipital cortex in response to tactile stimulation after five days of complete visual deprivation. This increase in signal was no longer present 24 hours after blindfold removal. Finally, reversible disruption of occipital cortex function on the fifth day (by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation; rTMS) impaired Braille character recognition ability in the blindfold group but not in non-blindfolded controls. This disruptive effect was no longer evident once the blindfold had been removed for 24 hours.

Conclusions/Significance

Overall, our findings suggest that sudden and complete visual deprivation in normally sighted individuals can lead to profound, but rapidly reversible, neuroplastic changes by which the occipital cortex becomes engaged in processing of non-visual information. The speed and dynamic nature of the observed changes suggests that normally inhibited or masked functions in the sighted are revealed by visual loss. The unmasking of pre-existing connections and shifts in connectivity represent rapid, early plastic changes, which presumably can lead, if sustained and reinforced, to slower developing, but more permanent structural changes, such as the establishment of new neural connections in the blind.     

Oxygenation of the cat primary visual cortex.

Tissue PO2 was measured in the primary visual cortex of anesthetized, artificially ventilated normovolemic cats to examine tissue oxygenation with respect to depth. The method utilized 1) a chamber designed to maintain cerebrospinal fluid pressure and prevent ambient PO2 from influencing the brain, 2) a microelectrode capable of recording electrical activity as well as local PO2, and 3) recordings primarily during electrode withdrawal from the cortex rather than during penetrations. Local peaks in the PO2 profiles were consistent with the presence of numerous vessels. Excluding the superficial 200 microm of the cortex, in which the ambient PO2 may have influenced tissue PO2, there was a slight decrease (4.9 Torr/mm cortex) in PO2 as a function of depth. After all depths and cats were weighted equally, the average PO2 in six cats was 12.8 Torr, with approximately one-half of the values being 相似文献   

Development of orientation preference in the mammalian visual cortex.

Recent experiments have studied the development of orientation selectivity in normal animals, visually deprived animals, and animals where patterns of neuronal activity have been altered. Results of these experiments indicate that orientation tuning appears very early in development, and that normal patterns of activity are necessary for its normal development. Visual experience is not needed for early development of orientation, but is crucial for maintaining orientation selectivity. Neuronal activity and vision thus seem to play similar roles in the development of orientation selectivity as they do in the development of eye-specific segregation in the visual system.     

Microcircuits in visual cortex

The microcircuitry of the neocortex is bewildering in its anatomical detail, but seen through the filters of physiology, some simple circuits have been suggested. Intensive investigations of the cortical representation of orientation, however, show how difficult it is to achieve any consensus on what the circuits are, how they develop, and how they work. New developments in modeling allied with powerful experimental tools are changing this. Experimental work combining optical imaging with anatomy and physiology has revealed a rich local cortical circuitry. Whereas older models of cortical circuits have concentrated on simple 'feedforward' circuits, newer theoretical work has explored more the role of the recurrent cortical circuits, which are more realistic representations of the actual circuits and are computationally richer.     

Grey matter volume in early human visual cortex predicts proneness to the sound-induced flash illusion

Visual perception can be modulated by sounds. A drastic example of this is the sound-induced flash illusion: when a single flash is accompanied by two bleeps, it is sometimes perceived in an illusory fashion as two consecutive flashes. However, there are strong individual differences in proneness to this illusion. Some participants experience the illusion on almost every trial, whereas others almost never do. We investigated whether such individual differences in proneness to the sound-induced flash illusion were reflected in structural differences in brain regions whose activity is modulated by the illusion. We found that individual differences in proneness to the illusion were strongly and significantly correlated with local grey matter volume in early retinotopic visual cortex. Participants with smaller early visual cortices were more prone to the illusion. We propose that strength of auditory influences on visual perception is determined by individual differences in recurrent connections, cross-modal attention and/or optimal weighting of sensory channels.     

Retinotopic mapping of categorical and coordinate spatial relation processing in early visual cortex

Spatial relations are commonly divided in two global classes. Categorical relations concern abstract relations which define areas of spatial equivalence, whereas coordinate relations are metric and concern exact distances. Categorical and coordinate relation processing are thought to rely on at least partially separate neurocognitive mechanisms, as reflected by differential lateralization patterns, in particular in the parietal cortex. In this study we address this textbook principle from a new angle. We studied retinotopic activation in early visual cortex, as a reflection of attentional distribution, in a spatial working memory task with either a categorical or a coordinate instruction. Participants were asked to memorize a dot position, with regard to a central cross, and to indicate whether a subsequent dot position matched the first dot position, either categorically (opposite quadrant of the cross) or coordinately (same distance to the centre of the cross). BOLD responses across the retinotopic maps of V1, V2, and V3 indicate that the spatial distribution of cortical activity was different for categorical and coordinate instructions throughout the retention interval; a more local focus was found during categorical processing, whereas focus was more global for coordinate processing. This effect was strongest for V3, approached significance in V2 and was absent in V1. Furthermore, during stimulus presentation the two instructions led to different levels of activation in V3 during stimulus encoding; a stronger increase in activity was found for categorical processing. Together this is the first demonstration that instructions for specific types of spatial relations may yield distinct attentional patterns which are already reflected in activity early in the visual cortex.     

Inferotemporal cortex and higher visual functions.

Recent studies have led to a better understanding of the mechanisms of object vision in the inferotemporal cortex. In particular, a columnar organization has been revealed, and a short-term change of responsiveness has been proposed as a neural correlate of working memory.     

Mouse visual cortex

Neurons in mouse visual cortex have diverse receptive field properties and they respond selectively to specific features of visual stimuli. Owing to the lateral position of the eyes, only about a third of the visual cortex receives input from both eyes, but many cells in this region are binocular. Similar to higher mammals, closing one eye during a critical period shifts the responses of cells, such that they are better driven by the non-deprived eye. In this review I illustrate how the combination of transgenic mouse technology with single cell recording and modern imaging techniques might lead to a further understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the development, plasticity, and function of the mammalian visual cortex.     

From neural oscillations to variational problems in the visual cortex.

Aim of this study is to provide a formal link between connectionist neural models and variational psycophysical ones. We show that the solution of phase difference equation of weakly connected neural oscillators gamma-converges as the dimension of the grid tends to 0, to the gradient flow relative to the Mumford-Shah functional in a Riemannian space. The Riemannian metric is directly induced by the pattern of neural connections. Next, we embed the energy functional in the specific geometry of the functional space of the primary visual cortex, that is described in terms of a subRiemannian Heisenberg space. Namely, we introduce the Mumford-Shah functional with the Heisenberg metric and discuss the applicability of our main gamma-convergence result to subRiemannian spaces.