Fast Backprojections from the Motion to the Primary Visual Area Necessary for Visual Awareness

Much is known about the pathways from photoreceptors to higher visual areas in the brain. However, how we become aware of what we see or of having seen at all is a problem that has eluded neuroscience. Recordings from macaque V1 during deactivation of MT+/V5 and psychophysical studies of perceptual integration suggest that feedback from secondary visual areas to V1 is necessary for visual awareness. We used transcranial magnetic stimulation to probe the timing and function of feedback from human area MT+/V5 to V1 and found its action to be early and critical for awareness of visual motion.

[1]  J. Winn,et al.  Brain , 1878, The Lancet.

[2]  J. R. Hughes,et al.  Sensory integration in children. Evoked potentials and intersensory functions in pediatrics and psychology: T. Shipley (Thomas, Springfield, Ill., 1980, 154 p., U.S. $ 15.50) , 1981 .

[3]  L. Weiskrantz.  Blindsight : a case study and implications , 1986 .

[4]  J. Maunsell,et al.  The effects of parvocellular lateral geniculate lesions on the acuity and contrast sensitivity of macaque monkeys , 1991, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[5]  P. Goldman-Rakic,et al.  Preface: Cerebral Cortex Has Come of Age , 1991 .

[6]  D. J. Felleman,et al.  Distributed hierarchical processing in the primate cerebral cortex. , 1991, Cerebral cortex.

[7]  S Zeki,et al.  Conscious visual perception without V1. , 1993, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[8]  AC Tose.  Cell , 1993, Cell.

[9]  E Marg,et al.  Phosphenes Induced by Magnetic Stimulation Over the Occipital Brain: Description and Probable Site of Stimulation , 1994, Optometry and vision science : official publication of the American Academy of Optometry.

[10]  D. Braun,et al.  Transcranial magnetic stimulation of extrastriate cortex degrades human motion direction discrimination , 1994, Vision Research.

[11]  J. Bullier,et al.  Visual latencies in areas V1 and V2 of the macaque monkey , 1995, Visual Neuroscience.

[12]  L. Weiskrantz,et al.  Parameters affecting conscious versus unconscious visual discrimination with damage to the visual cortex (V1). , 1995, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[13]  Daniel A. Pollen,et al.  Cortical areas in visual awareness , 1995, Nature.

[14]  Christof Koch,et al.  Cortical areas in visual awareness , 1995, Nature.

[15]  P A Salin,et al.  Corticocortical connections in the visual system: structure and function. , 1995, Physiological reviews.

[16]  A. Cowey,et al.  Impairment of the perception of second order motion but not first order motion in a patient with unilateral focal brain damage , 1996, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[17]  A. Mccarthy.  Development , 1996, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[18]  H. Siebner,et al.  Imaging brain activation induced by long trains of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation , 1998, Neuroreport.

[19]  C. Schroeder,et al.  A spatiotemporal profile of visual system activation revealed by current source density analysis in the awake macaque. , 1998, Cerebral cortex.

[20]  A P Rudell,et al.  Transcranial magnetic stimulation in study of the visual pathway. , 1998, Journal of clinical neurophysiology : official publication of the American Electroencephalographic Society.

[21]  R. Quatrano.  Genomics , 1998, Plant Cell.

[22]  S. Zeki,et al.  The Riddoch syndrome: insights into the neurobiology of conscious vision. , 1998, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[23]  Victor A. F. Lamme,et al.  Feedforward, horizontal, and feedback processing in the visual cortex , 1998, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[24]  A. Leventhal,et al.  Signal timing across the macaque visual system. , 1998, Journal of neurophysiology.

[25]  Thomas Kammer,et al.  Phosphenes and transient scotomas induced by magnetic stimulation of the occipital lobe: their topographic relationship , 1998, Neuropsychologia.

[26]  J. M. Hupé,et al.  Cortical feedback improves discrimination between figure and background by V1, V2 and V3 neurons , 1998, Nature.

[27]  C. Koch,et al.  Consciousness and neuroscience. , 1998, Cerebral cortex.

[28]  Á. Pascual-Leone,et al.  Transcranial magnetic stimulation: studying the brain-behaviour relationship by induction of 'virtual lesions'. , 1999, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[29]  D A Pollen,et al.  On the neural correlates of visual perception. , 1999, Cerebral cortex.

[30]  J. Rothwell,et al.  Transcranial magnetic stimulation in cognitive neuroscience – virtual lesion, chronometry, and functional connectivity , 2000, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[31]  T J Sejnowski,et al.  Motion integration and postdiction in visual awareness. , 2000, Science.

[32]  L. Cohen,et al.  Enhanced excitability of the human visual cortex induced by short-term light deprivation. , 2000, Cerebral cortex.

[33]  Pieter R Roelfsema,et al.  The role of primary visual cortex (V1) in visual awareness , 2000, Vision Research.

[34]  A. Cowey,et al.  Magnetically induced phosphenes in sighted, blind and blindsighted observers , 2000, Neuroreport.

[35]  Alan Cowey,et al.  Transcranial magnetic stimulation and cognitive neuroscience , 2000, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[36]  D. Wilkin,et al.  Neuron , 2001, Brain Research.