scholarly journals Dependence of short-latency ocular following and associated activity in the medial superior temporal area (MST) on ocular vergence

1998 ◽  
Vol 121 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Inoue ◽  
A. Takemura ◽  
K. Kawano ◽  
T. Kitama ◽  
F. A. Miles
Neuroreport ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 9 (17) ◽  
pp. 3981-3987 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Benson ◽  
Kun Guo

1999 ◽  
Vol 82 (5) ◽  
pp. 2462-2475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satoshi Eifuku ◽  
Robert H. Wurtz

Many neurons in the lateral-ventral region of the medial superior temporal area (MSTl) have a clear center surround separation in their receptive fields. Either moving or stationary stimuli in the surround modulates the response to moving stimuli in the center, and this modulation could facilitate the perceptual segmentation of a moving object from its background. Another mechanism that could facilitate such segmentation would be sensitivity to binocular disparity in the center and surround regions of the receptive fields of these neurons. We therefore investigated the sensitivity of these MSTl neurons to disparity ranging from three degrees crossed disparity (near) to three degrees uncrossed disparity (far) applied to both the center and the surround regions. Many neurons showed clear disparity sensitivity to stimulus motion in the center of the receptive field. About [Formula: see text] of 104 neurons had a clear peak in their response, whereas another [Formula: see text] had broader tuning. Monocular stimulation abolished the tuning. The prevalence of cells broadly tuned to near and far disparity and the reversal of preferred directions at different disparities observed in MSTd were not found in MSTl. A stationary surround at zero disparity simply modulated up or down the response to moving stimuli at different disparities in the receptive field (RF) center but did not alter the disparity tuning curve. When the RF center motion was held at zero disparity and the disparity of the stationary surround was varied, some surround disparities produced greater modulation of MSTl neuron response than did others. Some neurons with different disparity preferences in center and surround responded best to the relative disparity differences between center and surround, whereas others were related to the absolute difference between center and surround. The combination of modulatory surrounds and the sensitivity to relative difference between center and surround disparity make these MSTl neurons particularly well suited for the segmentation of a moving object from the background.


1988 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 940-965 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. R. Dursteler ◽  
R. H. Wurtz

1. Previous experiments have shown that punctate chemical lesions within the middle temporal area (MT) of the superior temporal sulcus (STS) produce deficits in the initiation and maintenance of pursuit eye movements (10, 34). The present experiments were designed to test the effect of such chemical lesions in an area within the STS to which MT projects, the medial superior temporal area (MST). 2. We injected ibotenic acid into localized regions of MST, and we observed two deficits in pursuit eye movements, a retinotopic deficit and a directional deficit. 3. The retinotopic deficit in pursuit initiation was characterized by the monkey's inability to match eye speed to target speed or to adjust the amplitude of the saccade made to acquire the target to compensate for target motion. This deficit was related to the initiation of pursuit to targets moving in any direction in the visual field contralateral to the side of the brain with the lesion. This deficit was similar to the deficit we found following damage to extrafoveal MT except that the affected area of the visual field frequently extended throughout the entire contralateral visual field tested. 4. The directional deficit in pursuit maintenance was characterized by a failure to match eye speed to target speed once the fovea had been brought near the moving target. This deficit occurred only when the target was moving toward the side of the lesion, regardless of whether the target began to move in the ipsilateral or contralateral visual field. There was no deficit in the amplitude of saccades made to acquire the target, or in the amplitude of the catch-up saccades made to compensate for the slowed pursuit. The directional deficit is similar to the one we described previously following chemical lesions of the foveal representation in the STS. 5. Retinotopic deficits resulted from any of our injections in MST. Directional deficits resulted from lesions limited to subregions within MST, particularly lesions that invaded the floor of the STS and the posterior bank of the STS just lateral to MT. Extensive damage to the densely myelinated area of the anterior bank or to the posterior parietal area on the dorsal lip of the anterior bank produced minimal directional deficits. 6. We conclude that damage to visual motion processing in MST underlies the retinotopic pursuit deficit just as it does in MT. MST appears to be a sequential step in visual motion processing that occurs before all of the visual motion information is transmitted to the brainstem areas related to pursuit.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (32) ◽  
pp. e2106235118
Author(s):  
Reuben Rideaux ◽  
Katherine R. Storrs ◽  
Guido Maiello ◽  
Andrew E. Welchman

Sitting in a static railway carriage can produce illusory self-motion if the train on an adjoining track moves off. While our visual system registers motion, vestibular signals indicate that we are stationary. The brain is faced with a difficult challenge: is there a single cause of sensations (I am moving) or two causes (I am static, another train is moving)? If a single cause, integrating signals produces a more precise estimate of self-motion, but if not, one cue should be ignored. In many cases, this process of causal inference works without error, but how does the brain achieve it? Electrophysiological recordings show that the macaque medial superior temporal area contains many neurons that encode combinations of vestibular and visual motion cues. Some respond best to vestibular and visual motion in the same direction (“congruent” neurons), while others prefer opposing directions (“opposite” neurons). Congruent neurons could underlie cue integration, but the function of opposite neurons remains a puzzle. Here, we seek to explain this computational arrangement by training a neural network model to solve causal inference for motion estimation. Like biological systems, the model develops congruent and opposite units and recapitulates known behavioral and neurophysiological observations. We show that all units (both congruent and opposite) contribute to motion estimation. Importantly, however, it is the balance between their activity that distinguishes whether visual and vestibular cues should be integrated or separated. This explains the computational purpose of puzzling neural representations and shows how a relatively simple feedforward network can solve causal inference.


2008 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy A. Orban

The extrastriate cortex of primates encompasses a substantial portion of the cerebral cortex and is devoted to the higher order processing of visual signals and their dispatch to other parts of the brain. A first step towards the understanding of the function of this cortical tissue is a description of the selectivities of the various neuronal populations for higher order aspects of the image. These selectivities present in the various extrastriate areas support many diverse representations of the scene before the subject. The list of the known selectivities includes that for pattern direction and speed gradients in middle temporal/V5 area; for heading in medial superior temporal visual area, dorsal part; for orientation of nonluminance contours in V2 and V4; for curved boundary fragments in V4 and shape parts in infero-temporal area (IT); and for curvature and orientation in depth from disparity in IT and CIP. The most common putative mechanism for generating such emergent selectivity is the pattern of excitatory and inhibitory linear inputs from the afferent area combined with nonlinear mechanisms in the afferent and receiving area.


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