Separate cortical stages in amodal completion revealed by functional magnetic resonance adaptation : research article

Background Objects in our environment are often partly occluded, yet we effortlessly perceive them as whole and complete. This phenomenon is called visual amodal completion. Psychophysical investigations suggest that the process of completion starts from a representation of the (visible) physical features of the stimulus and ends with a completed representation of the stimulus. The goal of our study was to investigate both stages of the completion process by localizing both brain regions involved in processing the physical features of the stimulus as well as brain regions representing the completed stimulus. Results Using fMRI adaptation we reveal clearly distinct regions in the visual cortex of humans involved in processing of amodal completion: early visual cortex - presumably V1 - processes the local contour information of the stimulus whereas regions in the inferior temporal cortex represent the completed shape. Furthermore, our data suggest that at the level of inferior temporal cortex information regarding the original local contour information is not preserved but replaced by the representation of the amodally completed percept. Conclusion These findings provide neuroimaging evidence for a multiple step theory of amodal completion and further insights into the neuronal correlates of visual perception

Cortical Columnar Organization Is Reconsidered in Inferior Temporal Cortex

The object selectivity of nearby cells in inferior temporal (IT) cortex is often different. To elucidate the relationship between columnar organization in IT cortex and the variability among neurons with respect to object selectivity, we used optical imaging technique to locate columnar regions (activity spots) and systematically compared object selectivity of individual neurons within and across the spots. The object selectivity of a given cell in a spot was similar to that of the averaged cellular activity within the spot. However, there was not such similarity among different spots (>600 μm apart). We suggest that each cell is characterized by 1) a cell-specific response property that cause cell-to-cell variability in object selectivity and 2) one or potentially a few numbers of response properties common across the cells within a spot, which provide the basis for columnar organization in IT cortex. Furthermore, similarity in object selectivity among cells within a randomly chosen site was lower than that for a cell in an activity spot identified by optical imaging beforehand. We suggest that the cortex may be organized in a region where neurons with similar response properties were densely clustered and a region where neurons with similar response properties were sparsely clustered

Familiarity Breeds Plasticity: Distinct Effects of Experience on Putative Excitatory and Inhibitory Neurons in Inferior Temporal Cortex

Primates have a remarkable capacity to recognize a vast array of visual objects, an ability that depends on experience. In this issue of Neuron, Woloszyn and Sheinberg (2012) report that putative excitatory and inhibitory neurons in inferior temporal cortex exhibit distinct influences long-term visual experience

Bi-stability of mixed states in neural network storing hierarchical patterns

We discuss the properties of equilibrium states in an autoassociative memory model storing hierarchically correlated patterns (hereafter, hierarchical patterns). We will show that symmetric mixed states (hereafter, mixed states) are bi-stable on the associative memory model storing the hierarchical patterns in a region of the ferromagnetic phase. This means that the first-order transition occurs in this ferromagnetic phase. We treat these contents with a statistical mechanical method (SCSNA) and by computer simulation. Finally, we discuss a physiological implication of this model. Sugase et al. analyzed the time-course of the information carried by the firing of face-responsive neurons in the inferior temporal cortex. We also discuss the relation between the theoretical results and the physiological experiments of Sugase et al.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure

Regional reductions of gray matter volume in familial dyslexia

An in vivo anatomic study of gray matter volume was performed in a group of familial dyslexic individuals, using an optimized method of voxel-based morphometry. Focal abnormalities in gray matter volume were observed bilaterally in the planum temporale, inferior temporal cortex, and cerebellar nuclei, suggesting that the underlying anatomic abnormalities may be responsible for defective written language acquisition in these subjects

Short-Term Memory Trace in Rapidly Adapting Synapses of Inferior Temporal Cortex

Visual short-term memory tasks depend upon both the inferior temporal cortex (ITC) and the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Activity in some neurons persists after the first (sample) stimulus is shown. This delay-period activity has been proposed as an important mechanism for working memory. In ITC neurons, intervening (nonmatching) stimuli wipe out the delay-period activity; hence, the role of ITC in memory must depend upon a different mechanism. Here, we look for a possible mechanism by contrasting memory effects in two architectonically different parts of ITC: area TE and the perirhinal cortex. We found that a large proportion (80%) of stimulus-selective neurons in area TE of macaque ITCs exhibit a memory effect during the stimulus interval. During a sequential delayed matching-to-sample task (DMS), the noise in the neuronal response to the test image was correlated with the noise in the neuronal response to the sample image. Neurons in perirhinal cortex did not show this correlation. These results led us to hypothesize that area TE contributes to short-term memory by acting as a matched filter. When the sample image appears, each TE neuron captures a static copy of its inputs by rapidly adjusting its synaptic weights to match the strength of their individual inputs. Input signals from subsequent images are multiplied by those synaptic weights, thereby computing a measure of the correlation between the past and present inputs. The total activity in area TE is sufficient to quantify the similarity between the two images. This matched filter theory provides an explanation of what is remembered, where the trace is stored, and how comparison is done across time, all without requiring delay period activity. Simulations of a matched filter model match the experimental results, suggesting that area TE neurons store a synaptic memory trace during short-term visual memory