Visual system | EPFL Graph Search

The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (the ability to detect and process visible light) as well as enabling the formation of several non-image photo response functions. It detects and interprets information from the optical spectrum perceptible to that species to "build a representation" of the surrounding environment. The visual system carries out a number of complex tasks, including the reception of light and the formation of monocular neural representations, colour vision, the neural mechanisms underlying stereopsis and assessment of distances to and between objects, the identification of a particular object of interest, motion perception, the analysis and integration of visual information, pattern recognition, accurate motor coordination under visual guidance, and more. The neuropsyc

Temporal stability of stimulus representation increases along rodent visual cortical hierarchies

Liviu Soltuzu

Cortical representations of brief, static stimuli become more invariant to identity-preserving transformations along the ventral stream. Likewise, increased invariance along the visual hierarchy should imply greater temporal persistence of temporally structured dynamic stimuli, possibly complemented by temporal broadening of neuronal receptive fields. However, such stimuli could engage adaptive and predictive processes, whose impact on neural coding dynamics is unknown. By probing the rat analog of the ventral stream with movies, we uncovered a hierarchy of temporal scales, with deeper areas encoding visual information more persistently. Furthermore, the impact of intrinsic dynamics on the stability of stimulus representations grew gradually along the hierarchy. A database of recordings from mouse showed similar trends, additionally revealing dependencies on the behavioral state. Overall, these findings show that visual representations become progressively more stable along rodent visual processing hierarchies, with an important contribution provided by intrinsic processing. Understanding stability of representation in the visual system can benefit by use of non-static, naturalistic stimuli. Here the authors examine stability of neural representations along the rat ventral stream while viewing naturalistic and synthetic movies.

NATURE RESEARCH2021

EEG beta band activity is related to attention and attentional deficits in the visual performance of elderly subjects

Izabela Szumska

We have previously shown that beta-band EEG activity is related to attentional modulation in the visual system of cats and humans. In a separate experiment we also observed that some elderly subjects expressed beta-band power decreases during a simple visual attention task, an effect which was accompanied by low behavioral accuracy in this subgroup. Here, we conducted a detailed examination of beta power deficits in elderly subjects in comparison to young controls. In order to do so, we equalized the subjective level of task difficulty by adjusting visual stimuli presentation duration in such a way that elderly and young subjects achieved similar behavioral results. We found that: (1) beta-band power of EEG signals recorded over occipital regions in elderly and young groups is related to visual attention, as judged from increases in beta power preceding correct responses and lack of beta activity change before erroneous responses; (2) despite forming a homogeneous group when screened for dementia (MMSE), age, education level, visual correction, and speed-accuracy trade-off strategy, elderly subjects could be assigned into one of the two subgroups: high performers, who did not differ from young performers in terms of beta-band power increases, and low ;performers, whose beta power decreased during the most difficult attentional conditions (shortest - 3 s and longest - 11 s cue-target delays). These findings posit that the beta-band activity decrease recorded in low performing elderly subjects reflects difficulty in activation and deficits in sustaining attentional processes. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Elsevier2013

Orchestration of oscillatory activity to improve visual motion discrimination

Roberto Felipe Salamanca Giron

This thesis describes advances in the use of novel configurations of non-invasive brain stimulation over the visual system allowing to modulate of modifying electro-physiological activity, interregional interactions and by it, visual behavior such as motion discrimination capacity in healthy subjects. We have implemented three experimental protocols that include the application of a motion discrimination and integration task in combination with bifocal transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (i.e. tACS) over the primary visual cortex (i.e. V1) and medio-temporal areas (i.e. V5), while varying some of the âorchestraâ parameters in each study. The common objective pursued in the three studies presented in the upcoming chapters was to evaluate physiological changes induced by tACS combined with the visual task, leading to enhanced visual performance expressed by the accurate distinction of the generalized movement orientation of a kinetogram. After introducing the scientific rationale of this thesis in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 describes whether applying two phase-shifted (Alpha) É-tACS conditions (Anti-Phase and In-Phase tACS) within the V1-V5 network were able to positively modulate behavior compared to Sham tACS. Our results suggest that the active Anti-Phase condition significantly increased visual motion discrimination compared to In-phase tACS which rather tended to decrease performances. These two case scenarios were associated with opposite changes in Alpha-Gamma oscillatory modulation (i.e. V1 phase â V5 amplitude coupling) determined by multichannel EEG. Based on these findings, in Chapter 3, we describe testing the effects of modulating Alpha-Gamma interregional interaction. Hence, two conditions V1ÉV5Æ tACS and vice versa, V1ÆV5É tACS, were behaviorally and electrophysiologically evaluated. The results suggested that there was a common electrophysiological feature between the two Verum tACS, which contrasted with Sham tACS, expressed through WPLIÆ (i.e. Weighted Phase Locking Value) connectivity. Furthermore, WPLIÉ and ZPAC V1amplitude â V5phase (i.e. Z-scored Phase Amplitude Coupling) were the inter-areal mechanisms in which both Verum conditions differed to explain the variance of their corresponding group behavior. However, the electrophysiological changes did not lead to significant difference in behavioral measures.In Chapter 4, we combined the knowledge gained in the first two studies and thus, we time-locked, short bursts of phase-shifted É-tACS to the visual stimulus onset. This permitted to find out that, despite the phase difference between the tACS conditions (i.e. In-Phase vs. Anti-Phase), there was a generalized augmentation of the performance after verum stimulation compared to the results with Sham. This amelioration was generally associated with changes in causal PSI (i.e. Phase Slope Index) flows in Æ, whereas specifically the Î-Æ modulation permitted to explain the differences in behavior between Verum and Sham. Moreover, dynamic PSI-causal Î² bottom-up and top-down flows revealed the mechanisms behind each type of Verum stimulation. These studies provided first interesting evidence that physiology-inspired bifocal tACS applied to the visual network might be used to modulate visual behavior and respective underlying mechanisms. The induced electrophysiological and behavioural effects achieved are complex and need to be studied in more details in upcoming studies.

EPFL2021

Orchestration of oscillatory activity to improve visual motion discrimination

Roberto Felipe Salamanca Giron

EPFL2021