stimvision · The effect of functionally targeted optical stimulation on visual perception

The effect of functionally targeted optical stimulation on visual perception

One of the central questions in neuroscience research is to understand how neural activity is linked to visual behaviour in order to elucidate underlying mechanisms of visual function. Typically two approaches have been taken in the past to answer this question: First, neural activity is correlated with specific visual events or stimuli, second neural activity explicitly manipulated and researchers observe the effect of manipulation on the neural network itself and behaviour within a visual context. While typically neural activity has been manipulated using microstimulation more recently researchers have been using newly developed genetic tools to accomplish manipulation. In this project, we firstly aimed at identifying specialised functional groups of neurons using two-photon calcium imaging and testing their functional properties using a visual paradigm. Secondly, we aimed to manipulate neural activity and measure how the manipulation affects neurons' activity during visual stimulation using a variety of methods including single cell electroporation and loose cell-attached recordings under visual guidance of two-photon calcium imaging. As a final goal, we planned to observe the effect of stimulation on the animals' performance in a visual task. Thus far, two-photon calcium imaging was used in combination with transgenic mouse lines to recognise neurons with specific functional and physiological properties in mouse visual cortex in vivo and accurately identify their location within the network. Specifically, we used the paradigm of visual surround suppression to study correlates of visual inhibition on neural network activity of visualised and functionally identified neurons in vivo using 2p calcium imaging and have been in the process of investigating the question using cell-attached recordings. Thus far our results indicate, similarly to previous work in non-human primates and humans, that surround suppression shows similar effects on neuronal activity in single neurons, but may be differential depending on specific functional properties of neurons. Current analyses focus on the question of the effect of visual suppression on coherent network activity and different subtypes of neurons based on physiological properties. Our preliminary results may implicate differential roles of neurons based on their physiological and functional properties in a basic visual mechanism. The challenging combination of state-of-the-art neuroscience research methodologies we used, including the genetic tools, techniques for visualising neural activity and electrophysiological measurements may finally help to unravel which types of neurons contribute in their specific ways to visual function. This can have implications for example on targeting subgroups of neurons for curing neural diseases that are characterised by impairment or loss of particular (visual) function. Generally, the impact of our research on society lies mainly in understanding basic neural mechanisms of visual function. Basic research can thus be seen as a tool to gain a better understanding not only of how sensory processing is achieved in the healthy brain, but which mechanisms are affected in diseases that lead to loss or impairment of visual function. Thus studying healthy visual function can lead to a better understanding of pathological changes which is a central prerequisite for curing diseases.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз