Dynamic representation of partially occluded objects in primate prefrontal and visual cortex

Successful recognition of partially occluded objects is presumed to involve dynamic interactions between brain areas responsible for vision and cognition, but neurophysiological evidence for the involvement of feedback signals is lacking. Here, we demonstrate that neurons in the ventrolateral prefro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:eLife 2017-09, Vol.6
Main Authors: Fyall, Amber M, El-Shamayleh, Yasmine, Choi, Hannah, Shea-Brown, Eric, Pasupathy, Anitha
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Applied mathematics
Cerebral blood flow
Cognition
Cortex (frontal)
Electroencephalography
feedback signals
Ischemia
Macaca mulatta
Male
Models, Neurological
Monkeys & apes
Neural networks
Neurons
neurophysiology
Neuroscience
object representation and recognition
partial occlusion
Pattern recognition
Prefrontal cortex
Prefrontal Cortex - physiology
visual area V4
Visual cortex
Visual Cortex - physiology
Visual discrimination
Visual Perception
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Summary:Successful recognition of partially occluded objects is presumed to involve dynamic interactions between brain areas responsible for vision and cognition, but neurophysiological evidence for the involvement of feedback signals is lacking. Here, we demonstrate that neurons in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) of monkeys performing a shape discrimination task respond more strongly to occluded than unoccluded stimuli. In contrast, neurons in visual area V4 respond more strongly to unoccluded stimuli. Analyses of V4 response dynamics reveal that many neurons exhibit two transient response peaks, the second of which emerges after vlPFC response onset and displays stronger selectivity for occluded shapes. We replicate these findings using a model of V4/vlPFC interactions in which occlusion-sensitive vlPFC neurons feed back to shape-selective V4 neurons, thereby enhancing V4 responses and selectivity to occluded shapes. These results reveal how signals from frontal and visual cortex could interact to facilitate object recognition under occlusion.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/eLife.25784