Key Points
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Multiple parallel processing strategies, involving over a dozen retinal ganglion cell types, can be found in the retina. Each ganglion cell type tiles the retina to provide a complete representation across the entire visual field of the visual attributes it conveys to the brain.
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Three retinal ganglion cell types have been particularly well characterized both anatomically and physiologically and project in parallel from the retina, through the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus to the primary visual cortex.
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The primary visual cortex receives parallel inputs from the thalamus and uses modularity, defined spatially and by cell type-specific connectivity, to recombine these inputs into new parallel outputs.
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Beyond the primary visual cortex, separate but interacting dorsal and ventral streams perform distinct computations on similar visual information to support distinct behavioural goals.
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Less is known about the parallel processing strategies that are used in the extrastriate visual cortex. However, there are strong indications that these areas use many of the same strategies that are found in the primary visual cortex.
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Many of the parallel processing strategies found in the primate visual system are also found in the other sensory processing systems of the mammalian brain.
Abstract
Incoming sensory information is sent to the brain along modality-specific channels corresponding to the five senses. Each of these channels further parses the incoming signals into parallel streams to provide a compact, efficient input to the brain. Ultimately, these parallel input signals must be elaborated on and integrated in the cortex to provide a unified and coherent percept. Recent studies in the primate visual cortex have greatly contributed to our understanding of how this goal is accomplished. Multiple strategies including retinal tiling, hierarchical and parallel processing and modularity, defined spatially and by cell type-specific connectivity, are used by the visual system to recover the intricate detail of our visual surroundings.
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Acknowledgements
We thank R. Born and J. Maunsell for helpful comments and the US National Institutes of Health for their support (RO1-EY010742 and F32-EY018982).
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Glossary
- Percept
-
The perception that arises internally, in the mind, based on an external stimulus, such as a visual stimulus.
- Parallel processing
-
Simultaneous processing of information through independent circuits.
- Photoreceptor
-
A specialized cell in the retina that detects light and responds with a change in membrane potential and a change in neurotransmitter release.
- Tiling
-
Relatively uniform and complete coverage of space.
- Hierarchical processing
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Processing that takes place in serial order, with more sophisticated properties emerging at higher levels through the build-up of simpler properties at lower levels.
- Modularity
-
When repeating modules are used to conduct similar operations. Typically, in the visual cortex each module will perform an operation related to visual information from a portion of the visual space. Together the modules cover the space so that the operation is conducted over the entire visual scene.
- Eccentricity
-
Distance from the centre. It is typically used to describe the distance of a visual receptive field from the centre of gaze and is expressed as an angle, in degrees.
- Colour-opponent signal
-
The signal that results when a visual receptive field is excited in response to one colour and inhibited in response to another.
- Receptive field
-
The location in visual space where a change in light can cause a change in neuronal activity.
- Broadband
-
Typically used to describe visual receptive fields that are not colour-opponent. Whether a broadband cell is excited or inhibited by a stimulus at a particular part of its receptive field is relatively independent of the wavelength of the light.
- Cytochrome oxidase blobs
-
Patches in the upper layers of the primate primary visual cortex with high concentrations of the metabolic enzyme cytochrome oxidase.
- Random-dot stereogram
-
A pair of random-dot images that generate the sensation of depth when the eyes are positioned so that they focus at a location in front of or behind the images.
- Disynaptic
-
Traversing two synaptic contacts. If a trans-synaptic anatomical tracer were to spread from one neuron across synaptic contacts to a second neuron, the spread would be monosynaptic. If the tracer continued to spread from the second neuron across more synaptic contacts to a third neuron, the spread would be disynaptic.
- Meynert cell
-
A large projection neuron in the deep layers of the visual cortex.
- Antidromic stimulation
-
Stimulation that is used to determine whether a neuron recorded in one location projects to another, distant location. Antidromic stimulation at the distant location generates action potentials that propagate back to, and are detected at, the recorded neuron.
- Fixating
-
Maintaining the eye position at a particular location.
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Nassi, J., Callaway, E. Parallel processing strategies of the primate visual system. Nat Rev Neurosci 10, 360–372 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2619
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2619
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