Visual system articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sensory stimuli usually arrive simultaneously but the neural-circuit mechanisms that combine multiple streams of sensory information are incompletely understood. The authors here show that visual-auditory pairing drives plasticity in multi-modal neuron networks within the mouse visual cortex.

    • Thomas Knöpfel
    • , Yann Sweeney
    •  & Samuel J. Barnes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Attention is known to enhance relevant information in our environment, yet its underlying neural computations remain unclear. Here, the authors provide evidence that the degree to which a neural population can normalize itself results in greater potential for attentional benefits.

    • Ilona M. Bloem
    •  & Sam Ling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Zebrafish larvae can binocularly detect prey objects in order to strike but lack ipsilateral retinotectal fibers for binocular superposition of visual information. Here the authors describe commissural intertectal neurons and show that they are required for the initiation of capture strikes.

    • Christoph Gebhardt
    • , Thomas O. Auer
    •  & Filippo Del Bene

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In congenitally blind people, tactile stimuli can activate the occipital (visual) cortex. Here, the authors show using magnetoencephalography (MEG) that occipital activation can occur within 35 ms following tactile stimulation, suggesting the existence of a fast thalamocortical pathway for touch in congenitally blind humans.

    • Franziska Müller
    • , Guiomar Niso
    •  & Ron Kupers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The temporal resolution of optical measurements of neural activity has traditionally been limited by the image or volume acquisition rate. Here, the authors describe an analysis that exploits the short duration of neural measurements within each image to extract neural responses at higher temporal resolution than the acquisition rate.

    • Omer Mano
    • , Matthew S. Creamer
    •  & Damon A. Clark

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cortical responses are highly heterogeneous, making it difficult to describe how they behave as a population. Here, the author overcomes this problem by introducing a geometric approach to study the representation of orientation and its transformation under the presence of a mask.

    • Dario L. Ringach

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In order to perceive moving or changing objects, sensory information must be integrated over time. Here, using a visual sequential metacontrast paradigm, the authors show that integration occurs only when subsequent stimuli are presented within a discrete window of time after the initial stimulus.

    • Leila Drissi-Daoudi
    • , Adrien Doerig
    •  & Michael H. Herzog

  • Article
    | Open Access

    “Genome-wide association studies have identified variants associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD); however, other than identifying this as a complement mediated inflammatory disease, little biology has emerged. Here, authors used novel computational tools from the Broad Institute to examine the relationship of single-cell transcriptomics and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in the human retina and demonstrate that GWAS-associated risk alleles associated with AMD are enriched in glia and vascular cells and that human retinal glia are more diverse than previously thought

    • Madhvi Menon
    • , Shahin Mohammadi
    •  & Brian P. Hafler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Visual objects from similar semantic categories present activity patterns that cluster together in higher visual areas. The authors show that conscious access differs between semantic categories and is driven by category-related visual features commonly associated with processing in higher level visual areas.

    • Daniel Lindh
    • , Ilja G. Sligte
    •  & Ian Charest

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In familiar environments, humans automatically anticipate the sensory consequences of their motor actions. Here, the authors show how action-based predictions arise from interactions between the hippocampus and visual cortex, and how these interactions strengthen and weaken over time.

    • Nicholas C. Hindy
    • , Emily W. Avery
    •  & Nicholas B. Turk-Browne

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In rodents, cells in the medial entorhinal cortex and subiculum are known to encode the allocentric direction to nearby walls and boundaries. Here, using fMRI the authors show that this is also true in humans, with allocentric boundary direction being encoded in posterior entorhinal cortex and subiculum.

    • J. P. Shine
    • , J. P. Valdés-Herrera
    •  & T. Wolbers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The effect of spontaneous variations in prestimulus neural activity on subsequent perception is incompletely understood. Here, using MEG, the authors identify two distinct neural processes that can influence object recognition in different ways.

    • Ella Podvalny
    • , Matthew W. Flounders
    •  & Biyu J. He

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Practice can improve the perception of stimuli used to achieve a task (perceptual learning). Here, the authors show in monkeys that perceptual learning can be produced even for irrelevant stimuli if the stimuli are paired with stimulation of a dopaminergic centre, the ventral tegmental area (VTA).

    • John T. Arsenault
    •  & Wim Vanduffel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is known that attention can modify the brain's representations of sensory stimuli to enhance features of importance. Here, the authors show that flexible readout of cortical representations is also required to explain the behavioral effects of attention.

    • Daniel Birman
    •  & Justin L. Gardner

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    No effective therapies exist for dry age-related macular degeneration. In this perspective, the authors propose that research should emphasize system biology approaches that integrate various ‘omics’ data into mathematical models to establish pathogenic mechanisms on which to design novel treatments, and identify biomarkers that predict disease progression and therapeutic response.

    • James T. Handa
    • , Cathy Bowes Rickman
    •  & Lindsay A. Farrer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is thought that higher cortical areas are more plastic than lower ones, but there is little direct evidence for this. Here, the authors show that plasticity (defined as lower heritability) of functional connectivity decreases from early to mid-level visual cortex, and then increases further up the visual hierarchy.

    • Koen V. Haak
    •  & Christian F. Beckmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    What is the function of color vision? Here, the authors show that when retinal mechanisms of color are impaired, memory has a paradoxical impact on color appearance that is selective for faces, providing evidence that color contributes to face encoding and social communication.

    • Maryam Hasantash
    • , Rosa Lafer-Sousa
    •  & Bevil R. Conway

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The visual system excels at segregating moving objects from their backgrounds, a key visual function hypothesized to be driven by suppressive centre-surround mechanisms. Here, the authors show that spatial suppression of background motion signals is critical for rapid segmentation of moving objects.

    • Duje Tadin
    • , Woon Ju Park
    •  & Randolph Blake

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The praying mantis, a predatory insect, estimates depth via binocular vision. In this way, the animal decides whether prey is within reach. Here, the authors explore the neural correlates of binocular distance estimation and report that individual neurons are tuned to specific locations in 3D space.

    • Ronny Rosner
    • , Joss von Hadeln
    •  & Jenny C. A. Read

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanisms of contextual modulation in direction selective ganglion cells in the retina remain unclear. Here, the authors find that that On-Off direction-selective ganglion cells are differentially sensitive to discontinuities of dark and bright moving edges in the visual environment and, using synapse-specific genetic manipulations with functional measurements, reveal the microcircuits underlying this contextual sensitivity.

    • Xiaolin Huang
    • , Melissa Rangel
    •  & Wei Wei

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The perception of spatial patterns (form vision) is thought to rely on rod and cone cells in the retina. Here, the authors show that a third kind of retinal cell, melanopsin-expressing ganglion cells, can also detect form in humans, under particular conditions.

    • Annette E. Allen
    • , Franck P. Martial
    •  & Robert J. Lucas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ribbon synapses in our sensory nervous system are central to hearing and sight, yet little is known about how these synapses are assembled and maintained during development. In this study, authors use live imaging techniques to monitor ribbon appearance, loss and maintenance in a retinal circuit during development to show that nascent synapses comprising of both ribbons and PSD95 are more stable over time compared to contacts without ribbons.

    • Haruhisa Okawa
    • , Wan-Qing Yu
    •  & Rachel O. L. Wong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    We can rapidly determine the gender, age and identity of a face, but the exact steps involved are unclear. Here, the authors show using magnetoencephalography (MEG) that gender and age are encoded in the brain before identity, and reveal the role of familiarity in the earliest stages of face processing.

    • Katharina Dobs
    • , Leyla Isik
    •  & Nancy Kanwisher

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Activating the spared neurons downstream of rods and cones is a potential therapeutic approach for retinal degeneration, but has been limited by the characteristics of the opsins available. Here, the authors use medium wavelength cone opsin which has faster kinetics than others and show that it resolves some of these difficulties in a mouse model.

    • Michael H. Berry
    • , Amy Holt
    •  & Ehud Y. Isacoff

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neural architecture may be shaped by selection, but is likely also constrained by development. Here, Keesey and colleagues find an inverse relationship between allocation towards visual and olfactory sensory systems across the genus Drosophila, which may reflect a developmental trade-off.

    • Ian W. Keesey
    • , Veit Grabe
    •  & Bill S. Hansson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sensory systems produce stable stimulus representations despite constant changes across multiple stimulus dimensions. Here, the authors reveal dynamic neural coding mechanisms by testing how coding of one dimension (orientation) changes with adaptations to other dimensions (luminance and contrast).

    • Masoud Ghodrati
    • , Elizabeth Zavitz
    •  & Nicholas S. C. Price

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The utility of UV vision for visualizing habitat structure is poorly known. Here, the authors use optical models and multispectral imaging to show that UV vision reveals sharp visual contrasts between leaf surfaces, potentially an advantage in navigating forest environments.

    • Cynthia Tedore
    •  & Dan-Eric Nilsson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The pulvinar is involved in vision and attention, but its interactions with other brain regions are little-studied. Here, using fMRI the authors show that the human pulvinar has widespread functional coupling with cortical areas that reflects its intrinsic organization and the topographic layout of cortex.

    • Michael J. Arcaro
    • , Mark A. Pinsk
    •  & Sabine Kastner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Locomotion is known to modulate neuronal firing in both the visual thalamus (LGN) and V1. Here, the authors characterize the LGN modulation in detail and report that neurons with transient ON responses for high spatial frequency stimuli show the strongest gain modulation.

    • Çağatay Aydın
    • , João Couto
    •  & Vincent Bonin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perceptual learning, the improvement in perceptual abilities with training, is thought to involve changes in neuronal 'tuning'. Here, the authors show that perceptual learning works by making neurons increasingly sensitive to task-relevant differences in stimuli, and by improving population coding mechanisms.

    • Mehdi Sanayei
    • , Xing Chen
    •  & Alexander Thiele

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The neural mechanisms underlying the suppression of fMRI responses to repeated stimuli are under debate. Here, the authors compare computational models to show that only a local scaling model can fit univariate and multivariate fMRI repetition effects across two paradigms and multiple brain regions.

    • Arjen Alink
    • , Hunar Abdulrahman
    •  & Richard N. Henson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Adaptation is thought to improve discrimination by pulling neural representations of similar stimuli farther apart. Here, the authors separately show that adaptation to a 3D shape class leads to better discrimination performance on similar shapes, and activity patterns diverge in object selective cortical areas.

    • Marcelo G. Mattar
    • , Maria Olkkonen
    •  & Geoffrey K. Aguirre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The presence of opposite horizontal motion in the two eyes is a cue for perceiving motion-in-depth, but also leads to suppressed motion sensitivity. Here, the authors address this paradox and show that spatial and interocular integration mechanisms, distinct from the extraction of motion-in-depth, drive suppression.

    • Peter J. Kohler
    • , Wesley J. Meredith
    •  & Anthony M. Norcia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disease of which the etiology is still unclear. Here the authors show that elevation of intraocular pressure induces T cell infiltration in the eyes. Furthermore, they show that T cell cross-reactivity between endogenous and commensal antigens contributes to disease onset in mice.

    • Huihui Chen
    • , Kin-Sang Cho
    •  & Dong F. Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In primates, the superior colliculus (SC) contributes to rapid visual exploration with saccades. Here the authors show that the superior colliculus preferentially represents low spatial frequencies, which are the most prevalent in natural scenes.

    • Chih-Yang Chen
    • , Lukas Sonnenberg
    •  & Ziad M. Hafed

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Attention reduces correlated variability in population activity, however the effect of fluctuations in attentional state has not been studied. Here, the authors report in a novel visual task that fluctuations in attentional allocation have a pronounced effect on correlated variability at longer timescales.

    • George H. Denfield
    • , Alexander S. Ecker
    •  & Andreas S. Tolias

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The precise role of PPC in transforming sensory signals to relevant actions is not yet clear. Here, the authors show that unlike V1, which is largely driven by visual input, PPC is strongly task-dependent and exhibits a mixture of stimulus and choice signals in a visual decision task.

    • Gerald N. Pho
    • , Michael J. Goard
    •  & Mriganka Sur

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thalamo-cortical circuit dynamics are tuned according to behavioral demands, yet the neural mechanisms are not well understood. Here the authors report arousal level-dependent switch in the functional interactions between the thalamus and cortex in ferrets both in spontaneous activity as well as during visual processing.

    • Iain Stitt
    • , Zhe Charles Zhou
    •  & Flavio Fröhlich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Feedback modulation of V1 is implicated in functions such as attention yet the precise neural mechanisms are not known. Here the authors report that optogenetic inactivation of V2 projections leads to modulation of V1 receptive field properties such as size, surround suppression and response amplitude.

    • Lauri Nurminen
    • , Sam Merlin
    •  & Alessandra Angelucci

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