Abstract
Visual neurons typically receive information from a limited portion of the retina, and such receptive fields are a key organizing principle for much of visual cortex. At the same time, there is strong evidence that receptive fields transiently shift around the time of saccades. The nature of the shift is controversial: Previous studies have found shifts consistent with a role for perceptual constancy; other studies suggest a role in the allocation of spatial attention. Here we present evidence that both the previously documented functions exist in individual neurons in primate cortical area V4. Remapping associated with perceptual constancy occurs for saccades in all directions, while attentional shifts mainly occur for neurons with receptive fields in the same hemifield as the saccade end point. The latter are relatively sluggish and can be observed even during saccade planning. Overall these results suggest a complex interplay of visual and extraretinal influences during the execution of saccades.
Highlights
Visual neurons typically receive information from a limited portion of the retina, and such receptive fields are a key organizing principle for much of visual cortex
We examined responses to the different probes described above during performance of horizontal saccades both towards (92 neurons) and away (59 neurons) from the visual hemifield containing the receptive fields (RFs) of the neurons under study
We have shown that visual RFs in area V4 remap around the time of saccades, with some RFs shifting towards the saccade target (ST) (42% for towards and 5% for away saccades; see Table 1), others towards the future field (FF) (26% for towards and 74% for away saccades), and others showing both types of behaviours at different latencies (17% for towards and 5% for away saccades)
Summary
Visual neurons typically receive information from a limited portion of the retina, and such receptive fields are a key organizing principle for much of visual cortex. Remapping associated with perceptual constancy occurs for saccades in all directions, while attentional shifts mainly occur for neurons with receptive fields in the same hemifield as the saccade end point. The latter are relatively sluggish and can be observed even during saccade planning. The two types of remapping depend differently on the saccade vector, with ST remapping being observed primarily for saccades directed towards the hemifield containing the neuron’s RF, while FF remapping occurs for saccades in the opposite direction Overall these results support the existence of both FF and ST remapping, and suggest that the two effects reflect distinct functional influences on V4
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