Intermittent stimulus presentation stabilizes neuronal responses in macaque area MT

Repeated stimulation impacts neuronal responses. Here we show how response characteristics of sensory neurons in macaque visual cortex are influenced by the duration of the interruptions during intermittent stimulus presentation. Besides effects on response magnitude consistent with neuronal adaptat...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of neurophysiology 2012-10, Vol.108 (8), p.2101-2114
Main Authors: Klink, P Christiaan, Oleksiak, Anna, Lankheet, Martin J M, van Wezel, Richard J A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
adaptation
ambiguous patterns
Animals
attention
binocular-rivalry
brain
Evoked Potentials, Visual
local-field potentials
Macaca mulatta
Male
Neural Pathways
perceptual memory
Photic Stimulation
primary visual-cortex
Sensory Receptor Cells - classification
Sensory Receptor Cells - physiology
structure-from-motion
variability
Visual Cortex - cytology
Visual Cortex - physiology
Visual Perception
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Repeated stimulation impacts neuronal responses. Here we show how response characteristics of sensory neurons in macaque visual cortex are influenced by the duration of the interruptions during intermittent stimulus presentation. Besides effects on response magnitude consistent with neuronal adaptation, the response variability was also systematically influenced. Spike rate variability in motion-sensitive area MT decreased when interruption durations were systematically increased from 250 to 2,000 ms. Activity fluctuations between subsequent trials and Fano factors over full response sequences were both lower with longer interruptions, while spike timing patterns became more regular. These variability changes partially depended on the response magnitude, but another significant effect that was uncorrelated with adaptation-induced changes in response magnitude was also present. Reduced response variability was furthermore accompanied by changes in spike-field coherence, pointing to the possibility that reduced spiking variability results from interactions in the local cortical network. While neuronal response stabilization may be a general effect of repeated sensory stimulation, we discuss its potential link with the phenomenon of perceptual stabilization of ambiguous stimuli as a result of interrupted presentation.
ISSN:0022-3077
1522-1598
DOI:10.1152/jn.00252.2012