Natural scene evoked population dynamics across cat primary visual cortex captured with voltage-sensitive dye imaging.
Standard
Natural scene evoked population dynamics across cat primary visual cortex captured with voltage-sensitive dye imaging. / Onat, Selim; König, Peter; Jancke, Dirk.
In: CEREB CORTEX, Vol. 21, No. 11, 11, 2011, p. 2542-2554.Research output: SCORING: Contribution to journal › SCORING: Journal article › Research › peer-review
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
T1 - Natural scene evoked population dynamics across cat primary visual cortex captured with voltage-sensitive dye imaging.
AU - Onat, Selim
AU - König, Peter
AU - Jancke, Dirk
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Neurons in primary visual cortex have been characterized by their selectivity to orientation, spatiotemporal frequencies, and motion direction, among others all essential parameters to decompose complex image structure. However, their concerted functioning upon real-world visual dynamics remained unobserved since most studies tested these parameters in isolation rather than in rich mixture. We used voltage-sensitive dye imaging to characterize population responses to natural scene movies, and for comparison, to well-established moving gratings. For the latter, we confirm previous observations of a deceleration/acceleration notch. Upon stimulation with natural movies, however, a subsequent acceleration component was almost absent. Furthermore, we found that natural stimuli revealed sparsely distributed nonseparable space-time dynamics, continuously modulated by movie motion. Net excitation levels detected with gratings were reached only rarely with natural movies. Emphasizing this observation, across the entire time course, both average and peak amplitudes were lower than nonspecific, that is, minimum, activity obtained for gratings. We estimated a necessary increase of ?30% of movie contrast to match high grating activity levels. Our results suggest that in contrast to gratings, processing of complex natural input is based on a balanced and stationary interplay between excitation and inhibition and point to the importance of suppressive mechanisms in shaping the operating regime of cortical dynamics.
AB - Neurons in primary visual cortex have been characterized by their selectivity to orientation, spatiotemporal frequencies, and motion direction, among others all essential parameters to decompose complex image structure. However, their concerted functioning upon real-world visual dynamics remained unobserved since most studies tested these parameters in isolation rather than in rich mixture. We used voltage-sensitive dye imaging to characterize population responses to natural scene movies, and for comparison, to well-established moving gratings. For the latter, we confirm previous observations of a deceleration/acceleration notch. Upon stimulation with natural movies, however, a subsequent acceleration component was almost absent. Furthermore, we found that natural stimuli revealed sparsely distributed nonseparable space-time dynamics, continuously modulated by movie motion. Net excitation levels detected with gratings were reached only rarely with natural movies. Emphasizing this observation, across the entire time course, both average and peak amplitudes were lower than nonspecific, that is, minimum, activity obtained for gratings. We estimated a necessary increase of ?30% of movie contrast to match high grating activity levels. Our results suggest that in contrast to gratings, processing of complex natural input is based on a balanced and stationary interplay between excitation and inhibition and point to the importance of suppressive mechanisms in shaping the operating regime of cortical dynamics.
KW - Animals
KW - Photic Stimulation
KW - Neurons/physiology
KW - Visual Perception/physiology
KW - Models, Neurological
KW - Cats
KW - Visual Cortex/physiology
KW - Voltage-Sensitive Dye Imaging
KW - Animals
KW - Photic Stimulation
KW - Neurons/physiology
KW - Visual Perception/physiology
KW - Models, Neurological
KW - Cats
KW - Visual Cortex/physiology
KW - Voltage-Sensitive Dye Imaging
M3 - SCORING: Journal article
VL - 21
SP - 2542
EP - 2554
JO - CEREB CORTEX
JF - CEREB CORTEX
SN - 1047-3211
IS - 11
M1 - 11
ER -