A selective impairment of motion perception following lesions of the middle temporal visual area (MT)

Physiological experiments indicate that the middle temporal visual area (MT) of primates plays a prominent role in the cortical analysis of visual motion. We investigated the role of MT in visual perception by examining the effect of chemical lesions of MT on psychophysical thresholds. We trained rhesus monkeys on psychophysical tasks that enabled us to assess their sensitivity to motion and to contrast. For motion psychophysics, we employed a dynamic random dot display that permitted us to vary the intensity of a motion signal in the midst of masking motion noise. We measured the threshold intensity for which the monkey could successfully complete a direction discrimination. In the contrast task, we measured the threshold contrast for which the monkeys could successfully discriminate the orientation of stationary gratings. Injections of ibotenic acid into MT caused striking elevations in motion thresholds, but had little or no effect on contrast thresholds. The results indicate that neural activity in MT contributes selectively to the perception of motion.

[1]  D. Robinson,et al.  A METHOD OF MEASURING EYE MOVEMENT USING A SCLERAL SEARCH COIL IN A MAGNETIC FIELD. , 1963, IEEE transactions on bio-medical engineering.

[2]  A. Fuchs,et al.  A method for measuring horizontal and vertical eye movement chronically in the monkey. , 1966, Journal of applied physiology.

[3]  E. Evarts.  A technique for recording activity of subcortical neurons in moving animals. , 1968, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[4]  S. Zeki,et al.  Response properties and receptive fields of cells in an anatomically defined region of the superior temporal sulcus in the monkey. , 1971, Brain research.

[5]  H. Levitt.  Transformed up-down methods in psychoacoustics. , 1971, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[6]  J. Kaas,et al.  A representation of the visual field in the caudal third of the middle tempral gyrus of the owl monkey (Aotus trivirgatus). , 1971, Brain research.

[7]  O. Braddick.  A short-range process in apparent motion. , 1974, Vision research.

[8]  S. Zeki.  Functional organization of a visual area in the posterior bank of the superior temporal sulcus of the rhesus monkey , 1974, The Journal of physiology.

[9]  S. Zeki.  Cells responding to changing image size and disparity in the cortex of the rhesus monkey , 1974, The Journal of physiology.

[10]  B. Dow.  Functional classes of cells and their laminar distribution in monkey visual cortex. , 1974, Journal of neurophysiology.

[11]  S. Zeki.  Uniformity and diversity of structure and function in rhesus monkey prestriate visual cortex. , 1978, The Journal of physiology.

[12]  F. Gallyas.  Silver staining of myelin by means of physical development. , 1979, Neurological research.

[13]  M. Morgan,et al.  Conditions for motion flow in dynamic visual noise , 1980, Vision Research.

[14]  S. Anstis.  The perception of apparent movement. , 1980, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[15]  B. Richmond,et al.  Implantation of magnetic search coils for measurement of eye position: An improved method , 1980, Vision Research.

[16]  J. Maunsell,et al.  Two‐dimensional maps of the cerebral cortex , 1980, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[17]  O J Braddick,et al.  Low-level and high-level processes in apparent motion. , 1980, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[18]  K. Nakayama,et al.  Psychophysical isolation of movement sensitivity by removal of familiar position cues , 1981, Vision Research.

[19]  John H. R. Maunsell,et al.  The middle temporal visual area in the macaque: Myeloarchitecture, connections, functional properties and topographic organization , 1981, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[20]  D C Van Essen,et al.  Functional properties of neurons in middle temporal visual area of the macaque monkey. I. Selectivity for stimulus direction, speed, and orientation. , 1983, Journal of neurophysiology.

[21]  D. J. Felleman,et al.  Progression of change following median nerve section in the cortical representation of the hand in areas 3b and 1 in adult owl and squirrel monkeys , 1983, Neuroscience.

[22]  J. Olney.  Excitotoxins: An Overview , 1983 .

[23]  John H. R. Maunsell,et al.  The connections of the middle temporal visual area (MT) and their relationship to a cortical hierarchy in the macaque monkey , 1983, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[24]  John H. R. Maunsell,et al.  Functional properties of neurons in middle temporal visual area of the macaque monkey. II. Binocular interactions and sensitivity to binocular disparity. , 1983, Journal of neurophysiology.

[25]  D. J. Felleman,et al.  Topographic reorganization of somatosensory cortical areas 3b and 1 in adult monkeys following restricted deafferentation , 1983, Neuroscience.

[26]  G. Blasdel,et al.  Physiological organization of layer 4 in macaque striate cortex , 1984, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[27]  T. Albright.  Direction and orientation selectivity of neurons in visual area MT of the macaque. , 1984, Journal of neurophysiology.

[28]  D. Hubel,et al.  Anatomy and physiology of a color system in the primate visual cortex , 1984, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[29]  M. Cynader,et al.  Somatosensory cortical map changes following digit amputation in adult monkeys , 1984, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[30]  Robert Sekuler,et al.  Coherent global motion percepts from stochastic local motions , 1984, Vision Research.

[31]  W. Newsome,et al.  Deficits in visual motion processing following ibotenic acid lesions of the middle temporal visual area of the macaque monkey , 1985, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[32]  C. R. Michael.  Laminar segregation of color cells in the monkey's striate cortex , 1985, Vision Research.

[33]  Curtis L. Baker,et al.  Eccentricity-dependent scaling of the limits for short-range apparent motion perception , 1985, Vision Research.

[34]  K. Tanaka,et al.  Analysis of local and wide-field movements in the superior temporal visual areas of the macaque monkey , 1986, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[35]  Leslie G. Ungerleider,et al.  Multiple visual areas in the caudal superior temporal sulcus of the macaque , 1986, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[36]  Leslie G. Ungerleider,et al.  Cortical connections of visual area MT in the macaque , 1986, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[37]  D. J. Felleman,et al.  Receptive field properties of neurons in area V3 of macaque monkey extrastriate cortex. , 1987, Journal of neurophysiology.

[38]  John H. R. Maunsell,et al.  Visual processing in monkey extrastriate cortex. , 1987, Annual review of neuroscience.

[39]  田中 啓治.  Analysis of Local and Wide-Field Movements in the Superior Temporal Visual Areas of the Macaque Monkey , 1987 .

[40]  W. Newsome,et al.  Directional pursuit deficits following lesions of the foveal representation within the superior temporal sulcus of the macaque monkey. , 1987, Journal of neurophysiology.

[41]  D. Ts'o,et al.  Functional organization of primate visual cortex revealed by high resolution optical imaging. , 1990, Science.