Event Details

The Impact of Motor Behaviour and Internal States on Subcortical Visual Processing: R Jean Banister Prize Lecture – Dr Sylvia Schröder

The early visual system is thought to efficiently encode visual input, e.g., by adapting to the recent stimulus history. Based on similar arguments, early visual processing could benefit from adapting to the animal’s current behaviour, its goals and internal states as these different contexts change the expected stimulus statistics and the importance of specific visual features. Indeed, we find that contextual modulation is evident as early as in the output of the retina and in neurons of the superficial superior colliculus receiving direct retinal input. Using two-photon imaging of calcium signals, we have recorded responses of large populations of neurons in the superior colliculus (SC) and of retinal axons projecting to the SC in awake mice engaged in different behaviours. When mice were running, spontaneous activity in about half of the recorded retinal axons and SC neurons was either enhanced or suppressed compared to stationary periods. Interestingly, the effect of running on visually driven activity was dependent on the visual input. Running had purely linear effects on the tuning to motion direction, i.e., changing the gain or offset of responses. In contrast, running shifted neurons’ preferences on average towards higher visual motion speeds, which indicates that neurons are better equipped to encode fast visual motion during running. Independent of the effects of running and arousal, we found that receiving water reward is an additional modulator of visual responses. Reward consistently increased responses to successive visual stimuli in about 20% of recorded SC neurons. These effects by reward could not be explained by pupil-linked arousal or body movements. The increase of visual responses after receiving water reward led to improved decoding of stimulus presence from the neural population activity. These results show that behavioural and internal state contexts affect visual processing at a very early stage, possibly to optimise the efficiency of stimulus encoding and motivationally driven encoding.

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