» Articles » PMID: 34849636

Higher Order Visual Areas Enhance Stimulus Responsiveness in Mouse Primary Visual Cortex

Overview
Journal Cereb Cortex
Specialty Neurology
Date 2021 Dec 1
PMID 34849636
Citations 3
Authors
Affiliations
Soon will be listed here.
Abstract

Over the past few years, the various areas that surround the primary visual cortex (V1) in the mouse have been associated with many functions, ranging from higher order visual processing to decision-making. Recently, some studies have shown that higher order visual areas influence the activity of the primary visual cortex, refining its processing capabilities. Here, we studied how in vivo optogenetic inactivation of two higher order visual areas with different functional properties affects responses evoked by moving bars in the primary visual cortex. In contrast with the prevailing view, our results demonstrate that distinct higher order visual areas similarly modulate early visual processing. In particular, these areas enhance stimulus responsiveness in the primary visual cortex, by more strongly amplifying weaker compared with stronger sensory-evoked responses (for instance specifically amplifying responses to stimuli not moving along the direction preferred by individual neurons) and by facilitating responses to stimuli entering the receptive field of single neurons. Such enhancement, however, comes at the expense of orientation and direction selectivity, which increased when the selected higher order visual areas were inactivated. Thus, feedback from higher order visual areas selectively amplifies weak sensory-evoked V1 responses, which may enable more robust processing of visual stimuli.

Citing Articles

Testing the role of spontaneous activity in visuospatial perception with patterned optogenetics.

Takahashi K, Pontes Quero S, Fiorilli J, Benedetti D, Yuste R, Friston K PLoS One. 2025; 20(2):e0318863.

PMID: 40014595 PMC: 11867336. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0318863.


The Neural and Computational Architecture of Feedback Dynamics in Mouse Cortex during Stimulus Report.

Ciceri S, Oude Lohuis M, Rottschafer V, Pennartz C, Avitabile D, van Gaal S eNeuro. 2024; 11(9).

PMID: 39260892 PMC: 11444237. DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0191-24.2024.


How 'visual' is the visual cortex? The interactions between the visual cortex and other sensory, motivational and motor systems as enabling factors for visual perception.

Pennartz C, Oude Lohuis M, Olcese U Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2023; 378(1886):20220336.

PMID: 37545313 PMC: 10404929. DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0336.


Functional (ir)Relevance of Posterior Parietal Cortex during Audiovisual Change Detection.

Oude Lohuis M, Marchesi P, Pennartz C, Olcese U J Neurosci. 2022; 42(26):5229-5245.

PMID: 35641187 PMC: 9236290. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2150-21.2022.

References
1.
Ibrahim L, Mesik L, Ji X, Fang Q, Li H, Li Y . Cross-Modality Sharpening of Visual Cortical Processing through Layer-1-Mediated Inhibition and Disinhibition. Neuron. 2016; 89(5):1031-45. PMC: 4874809. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2016.01.027. View

2.
Makino H, Komiyama T . Learning enhances the relative impact of top-down processing in the visual cortex. Nat Neurosci. 2015; 18(8):1116-22. PMC: 4523093. DOI: 10.1038/nn.4061. View

3.
Pafundo D, Nicholas M, Zhang R, Kuhlman S . Top-Down-Mediated Facilitation in the Visual Cortex Is Gated by Subcortical Neuromodulation. J Neurosci. 2016; 36(10):2904-14. PMC: 4783494. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2909-15.2016. View

4.
Harvey C, Coen P, Tank D . Choice-specific sequences in parietal cortex during a virtual-navigation decision task. Nature. 2012; 484(7392):62-8. PMC: 3321074. DOI: 10.1038/nature10918. View

5.
Ko H, Hofer S, Pichler B, Buchanan K, Sjostrom P, Mrsic-Flogel T . Functional specificity of local synaptic connections in neocortical networks. Nature. 2011; 473(7345):87-91. PMC: 3089591. DOI: 10.1038/nature09880. View