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Temporal and spatial adaptation of transient responses to local features

Interpreting visual motion within the natural environment is a challenging task, particularly considering that natural scenes vary enormously in brightness, contrast and spatial structure. The performance of current models for the detection of self-generated optic flow depends critically on these ve...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: O'Carroll, David C., Barnett, Paul D., Nordström, Karin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3474938/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23087617
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncir.2012.00074
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author O'Carroll, David C.
Barnett, Paul D.
Nordström, Karin
author_facet O'Carroll, David C.
Barnett, Paul D.
Nordström, Karin
author_sort O'Carroll, David C.
collection PubMed
description Interpreting visual motion within the natural environment is a challenging task, particularly considering that natural scenes vary enormously in brightness, contrast and spatial structure. The performance of current models for the detection of self-generated optic flow depends critically on these very parameters, but despite this, animals manage to successfully navigate within a broad range of scenes. Within global scenes local areas with more salient features are common. Recent work has highlighted the influence that local, salient features have on the encoding of optic flow, but it has been difficult to quantify how local transient responses affect responses to subsequent features and thus contribute to the global neural response. To investigate this in more detail we used experimenter-designed stimuli and recorded intracellularly from motion-sensitive neurons. We limited the stimulus to a small vertically elongated strip, to investigate local and global neural responses to pairs of local “doublet” features that were designed to interact with each other in the temporal and spatial domain. We show that the passage of a high-contrast doublet feature produces a complex transient response from local motion detectors consistent with predictions of a simple computational model. In the neuron, the passage of a high-contrast feature induces a local reduction in responses to subsequent low-contrast features. However, this neural contrast gain reduction appears to be recruited only when features stretch vertically (i.e., orthogonal to the direction of motion) across at least several aligned neighboring ommatidia. Horizontal displacement of the components of elongated features abolishes the local adaptation effect. It is thus likely that features in natural scenes with vertically aligned edges, such as tree trunks, recruit the greatest amount of response suppression. This property could emphasize the local responses to such features vs. those in nearby texture within the scene.
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spelling pubmed-34749382012-10-19 Temporal and spatial adaptation of transient responses to local features O'Carroll, David C. Barnett, Paul D. Nordström, Karin Front Neural Circuits Neuroscience Interpreting visual motion within the natural environment is a challenging task, particularly considering that natural scenes vary enormously in brightness, contrast and spatial structure. The performance of current models for the detection of self-generated optic flow depends critically on these very parameters, but despite this, animals manage to successfully navigate within a broad range of scenes. Within global scenes local areas with more salient features are common. Recent work has highlighted the influence that local, salient features have on the encoding of optic flow, but it has been difficult to quantify how local transient responses affect responses to subsequent features and thus contribute to the global neural response. To investigate this in more detail we used experimenter-designed stimuli and recorded intracellularly from motion-sensitive neurons. We limited the stimulus to a small vertically elongated strip, to investigate local and global neural responses to pairs of local “doublet” features that were designed to interact with each other in the temporal and spatial domain. We show that the passage of a high-contrast doublet feature produces a complex transient response from local motion detectors consistent with predictions of a simple computational model. In the neuron, the passage of a high-contrast feature induces a local reduction in responses to subsequent low-contrast features. However, this neural contrast gain reduction appears to be recruited only when features stretch vertically (i.e., orthogonal to the direction of motion) across at least several aligned neighboring ommatidia. Horizontal displacement of the components of elongated features abolishes the local adaptation effect. It is thus likely that features in natural scenes with vertically aligned edges, such as tree trunks, recruit the greatest amount of response suppression. This property could emphasize the local responses to such features vs. those in nearby texture within the scene. Frontiers Media S.A. 2012-10-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3474938/ /pubmed/23087617 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncir.2012.00074 Text en Copyright © 2012 O'Carroll, Barnett and Nordström. http://www.frontiersin.org/licenseagreement This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
O'Carroll, David C.
Barnett, Paul D.
Nordström, Karin
Temporal and spatial adaptation of transient responses to local features
title Temporal and spatial adaptation of transient responses to local features
title_full Temporal and spatial adaptation of transient responses to local features
title_fullStr Temporal and spatial adaptation of transient responses to local features
title_full_unstemmed Temporal and spatial adaptation of transient responses to local features
title_short Temporal and spatial adaptation of transient responses to local features
title_sort temporal and spatial adaptation of transient responses to local features
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3474938/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23087617
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncir.2012.00074
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