Ensemble cortical responses to rival visual stimuli: effect of monocular transient.

Binocular rivalry is a fascinating perceptual phenomenon that has been characterized extensively at the psychophysical level. However, the underlying neural mechanism remains poorly understood. In particular, the role of the early visual pathway remains controversial. In this study, we used voltage-sensitive dye imaging to measure the spatiotemporal activity patterns in cat area 18 evoked by dichoptic orthogonal grating stimuli. We found that after several seconds of monocular stimulation with an oriented grating, an orthogonal stimulus to the other eye evoked a reversal of the cortical response pattern, which may contribute to flash suppression in perception. Furthermore, after several seconds of rival binocular stimulation with unequal contrasts, transient increase in the contrast of the weak stimulus evoked a long-lasting cortical response. This transient-triggered response could contribute to the perceptual switch during binocular rivalry. Together, these results point to a significant contribution of early visual cortex to transient-triggered switch in perceptual dominance.

[1]  Raymond van Ee,et al.  The role of saccades in exerting voluntary control in perceptual and binocular rivalry , 2006, Vision Research.

[2]  Ryota Kanai,et al.  Perceptual Alternation Induced by Visual Transients , 2005, Perception.

[3]  Pei-shan Wu,et al.  Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications , 1960, Nature.

[4]  Frank Tong,et al.  Filling-in of visual phantoms in the human brain , 2005, Nature Neuroscience.

[5]  C. Wheatstone.  XVIII. Contributions to the physiology of vision. —Part the first. On some remarkable, and hitherto unobserved, phenomena of binocular vision , 1962, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.

[6]  Randolph Blake,et al.  Strength of early visual adaptation depends on visual awareness. , 2010, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[7]  R. Blake,et al.  The Interaction between Binocular Rivalry and Negative Afterimages , 2005, Current Biology.

[8]  David L. Sheinberg,et al.  The role of temporal cortical areas in perceptual organization. , 1997, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[9]  W. Levelt,et al.  BINOCULAR BRIGHTNESS AVERAGING AND CONTOUR INFORMATION. , 1965, British journal of psychology.

[10]  Randolph Blake,et al.  Hierarchy of cortical responses underlying binocular rivalry , 2007, Nature Neuroscience.

[11]  P. Walker,et al.  The sensitivity of binocular rivalry to changes in the nondominant stimulus , 1979, Vision Research.

[12]  Charles Wheatstone.  On some remarkable and hitherto unobserved phenomena of binocular vision. , 1962 .

[13]  D. Heeger,et al.  Neuronal activity in human primary visual cortex correlates with perception during binocular rivalry , 2000, Nature Neuroscience.

[14]  P. Lennie,et al.  Pattern-selective adaptation in visual cortical neurones , 1979, Nature.

[15]  Stephen A. Engel,et al.  Interocular rivalry revealed in the human cortical blind-spot representation , 2001, Nature.

[16]  Geraint Rees,et al.  Neural correlates of consciousness in humans , 2002, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[17]  Hugh R Wilson,et al.  Computational evidence for a rivalry hierarchy in vision , 2003, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[18]  Jeremy M. Wolfe,et al.  Reversing ocular dominance and suppression in a single flash , 1984, Vision Research.

[19]  Randolph Blake,et al.  Traveling waves of activity in primary visual cortex during binocular rivalry , 2005, Nature Neuroscience.

[20]  Colin Blakemore,et al.  Interocular control of neuronal responsiveness in cat visual cortex , 1994, Nature.

[21]  C. Clifford,et al.  Suppressed Patterns Alter Vision during Binocular Rivalry , 2005, Current Biology.

[22]  N. Logothetis,et al.  Activity changes in early visual cortex reflect monkeys' percepts during binocular rivalry , 1996, Nature.

[23]  R. Blake,et al.  Neural bases of binocular rivalry , 2006, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[24]  R. Blake,et al.  Temporal perturbations of binocular rivalry , 1990, Perception & psychophysics.

[25]  Sheng He,et al.  Visible binocular beats from invisible monocular stimuli during binocular rivalry , 2000, Current Biology.

[26]  C. Blakemore,et al.  Interocular suppression in the primary visual cortex: a possible neural basis of binocular rivalry , 1995, Vision Research.

[27]  Alan W Freeman,et al.  Multistage model for binocular rivalry. , 2005, Journal of neurophysiology.

[28]  C. Koch,et al.  Continuous flash suppression reduces negative afterimages , 2005, Nature Neuroscience.

[29]  H. Wilson,et al.  Dynamics of travelling waves in visual perception , 2001, Nature.