4.7 Article

Top-Down Feedback Controls the Cortical Representation of Illusory Contours in Mouse Primary Visual Cortex

Journal

JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 40, Issue 3, Pages 648-660

Publisher

SOC NEUROSCIENCE
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1998-19.2019

Keywords

illusion; Kanizsa; optogenetics; silicon probes; top-down feedback; visual cortex

Categories

Funding

  1. Whitehall Foundation Research Grant

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Visual systems have evolved to recognize and extract features from complex scenes using limited sensory information. Contour perception is essential to this process and can occur despite breaks in the continuity of neighboring features. Such robustness of the animal visual system to degraded or occluded shapes may also give rise to an interesting phenomenon of optical illusions. These illusions provide a great opportunity to decipher neural computations underlying contour integration and object detection. Kanizsa illusory contours have been shown to evoke responses in the early visual cortex despite the lack of direct receptive field activation. Recurrent processing between visual areas has been proposed to be involved in this process. However, it is unclear whether higher visual areas directly contribute to the generation of illusory responses in the early visual cortex. Using behavior, in vivo electrophysiology, and optogenetics, we first show that the primary visual cortex (V1) of male mice responds to Kanizsa illusory contours. Responses to Kanizsa illusions emerge later than the responses to the contrast-defined real contours in V1. Second, we demonstrate that illusory responses are orientation-selective. Finally, we show that top-down feedback controls the neural correlates of illusory contour perception in V1. Our results suggest that higher-order visual areas may fill in the missing information in the early visual cortex necessary for illusory contour perception.

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