Summary: A new research reveals that physical clutter alters how data flows between neurons in the body’s main physical cortex, but not the order in which it’s processed. According to research, the effectiveness of data transfer differs depending on where noise is located in the visual field.
This finding provides insight into “visual crowding,” a condition that makes it difficult to tell apart things in crowded environments, particularly in peripheral vision. The findings advance our understanding of how neural networks govern understanding and was guide future research into interest and brain function.
Important Information:
- How effectively information flows in the physical brain is affected by physical noise.
- The research helps clarify “visual crowding”, making item recognition easier in clutter.
- The circulation but not the flow of information transfer are affected by various physical clutter locations, which also affect the flow.
Origin: Yale
Whether we’re staring at our devices, the website of a book, or the people across the board, the things of our target always remain in confinement, there are always other objects or people in our field of vision. How that physical” clutter” affects visible running in the mind, however, is not well understood.
In a new research published Oct. 22 in the journal , Neuron, Yale researchers show that this noise alters how data flows in the head, as does the exact location of that mess within the wider field of vision. The findings provide a more in-depth knowing of the brain’s sensory cortex and define the neural foundation of perception.
Anirvan Nandy, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine ( YSM), and co-senior author of the study, noted that “prior research has shown that visual clutter has an effect on the target of your perception, and to different degrees depending on where that clutter is with respect to where you’re currently looking.
” For instance, if I’m asked to read the word” cat” out of the corner of my eye, the letter” t” will have a much greater effect than the letter” c” in my inability to accurately identify the letter “a,” despite the fact that” c” and” t” are equidistant from” a.”
We have a hard time identifying objects when they are buried among the clutter at the edge of our vision, according to Nandy, and because of this phenomenon, we ca n’t read out of the corner of our eyes, no matter how hard we try.
Researchers wanted to find out what happens in the brain when this visual clutter is present for the new study.
In order to accomplish this, they taught macaque monkeys, a species whose visual systems and abilities are most similar to those of humans, to fixate on the edge of a screen while receiving visual stimuli both inside and outside of their receptive regions. During this task, researchers recorded neural activity in the monkey’s primary visual cortex, the brain’s main gateway for visual information processing.
The primary visual cortex’s location, according to the researchers, did n’t significantly affect how information was passed between neurons because of how specific location of this clutter in the monkey’s visual field. It did, however, affect how efficiently that information flowed.
It’s kind of like a phone tree, wherein people are asked to call one another to relay a piece of information until, one after another, each member of the group has received it.
In the case of visual perception, researchers say, the location of visual clutter did n’t change the order of the phone tree, but it , did , change how well the message was relayed person to person.
For instance, visual clutter in one location would affect the primary visual cortex’s ability to process information more efficiently than clutter in another location, according to Monika Jadi, assistant professor of psychiatry at YSM and senior author of the study.
Additionally, the researchers discovered a unique general characteristic of the visual cortex.
When an object is visible or recognized, there are several brain regions that process information sequentially through them. For instance, the primary visual cortex transmits a package of information to the secondary visual cortex, which transmits its data to the next stop.
According to Jadi, “what was already well understood is that there are complex computations that take place within individual visual areas, and the results of these computations are then transferred to the next area in the visual hierarchy to finish the entire object recognition computation.”
There are also subunits within these larger areas that are conducting their own calculations and relaying some, but not all, of that information to other subunits, according to the researchers ‘ new study. The finding addresses a gap that had existed between various fields of vision research, Nandy said.
The researchers are now interested in how clutter might impact how attention might be impacted by attention processing between brain regions.
” When you’re driving, for instance, you may be looking at the car in front of you, but your attention could be focused on a car in the next lane as you try to determine if they’re about to merge”, said Nandy.
Therefore, the car in front of you provides the detailed visual information, but the important information is hidden behind your focus.
How does that attention make up for the fact that you still perceive the attended portion of the visual space much better than the actual location of your eyes when you do n’t have the best resolution information? said Jadi.
How does attention affect the cortex’s ability to process information? That’s what we want to explore”.
Xize Xu, a post-doctoral fellow at YSM, and Mitchell Morton, a former post-doctoral associate at YSM, were co-first authors of the study.
About this news about this research in visual neuroscience
Author: Bess Connolly
Source: Yale
Contact: Bess Connolly – Yale
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Closed access.
Anirvan Nandy et al.,” Inter-laminar information flow in the primary visual cortex is influenced by spatial context in a non-uniform way..” Neuron
Abstract
Inter-laminar information flow in the primary visual cortex is influenced by spatial context in a non-uniform way.
The coordinated action of neuronal ensembles in the sensory hierarchy contributes to our visual experience. However, it is still not fully understood how the spatial organization of objects affects this activity.
We investigate how flankers at spatial configurations known to cause non-uniform degeneration of perception affect inter-laminar information flow within the primary visual cortex ( V1 ).
We demonstrate that information propagation between cortical layers occurs along a structurally stable communication subspace by using dimensionality reduction techniques to simultaneously record layer-specific population recordings.
Inter-laminar communication efficacy, the balance of feedforward and effective feedback signaling, and contextual signaling in the superficial layers are differentially influenced by the spatial configuration of contextual stimuli. Remarkably, these modulations mirror the spatially non-uniform aspects of perceptual degradation.
Our findings point to a model of retinotopically non-uniform cortical connectivity that affects the sensory hierarchy’s information flow.
