Synchronization of Neuronal Responses in Primary Visual Cortex of Monkeys Viewing Natural Images
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2008-09Metadata
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Maldonado Arbogast, Pedro
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Synchronization of Neuronal Responses in Primary Visual Cortex of Monkeys Viewing Natural Images
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Abstract
When inspecting visual scenes, primates perform on average four
saccadic eye movements per second, which implies that scene segmentation,
feature binding, and identification of image components is
accomplished in 200 ms. Thus individual neurons can contribute
only a small number of discharges for these complex computations,
suggesting that information is encoded not only in the discharge rate
but also in the timing of action potentials. While monkeys inspected
natural scenes we registered, with multielectrodes from primary visual
cortex, the discharges of simultaneously recorded neurons. Relating
these signals to eye movements revealed that discharge rates peaked
around 90 ms after fixation onset and then decreased to near baseline
levels within 200 ms. Unitary event analysis revealed that preceding
this increase in firing there was an episode of enhanced response
synchronization during which discharges of spatially distributed cells
coincided within 5-ms windows significantly more often than predicted
by the discharge rates. This episode started 30 ms after fixation
onset and ended by the time discharge rates had reached their
maximum. When the animals scanned a blank screen a small change
in firing rate, but no excess synchronization, was observed. The short
latency of the stimulation-related synchronization phenomena suggests
a fast-acting mechanism for the coordination of spike timing that
may contribute to the basic operations of scene segmentation.
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J Neurophysiol • VOL 100 • SEPTEMBER 2008, pp. 1523–1532
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