Abstract
Pupillary light reflex adjusts the amount of light reaching the retina. Recent work suggests that the brainstem pupillary light reflex pathway is controlled by the environment's internal models derived from higher-order temporal statistics. This finding has implications at the behavioral and neural levels. Pupillary changes in response to statistical regularities could be a metric constituting the precision with which the internal models are represented. These pupillary changes may aid in information processing through attentional mechanisms. One possible region that mediates descending cognitive inputs to pupil cycling is locus coeruleus. Here we propose a unified framework of locus coeruleus' role in modulating pupillary change, which successfully explains current and previous findings. The locus coeruleus could have multiple subsystems selectively (but not exclusively) driven by behavioral relevance and statistical learning to regulate pupillary change.
Highlights
Pupillary light reflex adjusts the amount of light reaching the retina
Recent work suggests that the brainstem pupillary light reflex pathway is controlled by the environment's internal models derived from higher-order temporal statistics
Converging evidence indicates the possibility that pupillary changes involve descending projections from various cortical and subcortical regions, including locus coeruleus (LC), thalamus, inferior and superior colliculus, anterior (ACC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), right anterior insular cortex and superior frontal gyrus (SFG) (DiNuzzo et al, 2019; Joshi et al, 2016), which makes pupil size an ideal candidate that reflects on a wide range of cognitive functioning (Mathôt and van der Stigchel, 2015)
Summary
Recent work suggests that the brainstem pupillary light reflex pathway is controlled by the environment's internal models derived from higher-order temporal statistics. The locus coeruleus could have multiple subsystems selectively (but not exclusively) driven by behavioral relevance and statistical learning to regulate pupillary change. Statistical learning; pupil dilation; locus-coeruleus; attentional mechanisms
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