The vOICe vision BCI 🧠🇪🇺Dec 7, 2023

Neurons in the primary visual cortex of freely moving rats encode both sensory and non-sensory task variables https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002384 via @ekmiller; "Interestingly, in animals trained to make an auditory decision following passive observation of a visual stimulus, some but not all task features could also be decoded from V1 activity."

#neuroscience

Neurons in the primary visual cortex of freely moving rats encode both sensory and non-sensory task variables

Neurons in primary visual cortex (area V1) are strongly driven by both sensory stimuli and nonsensory events. This study shows that during visual and auditory decisions, rat V1 represents multiple task features in an overlapping and distributed fashion, with some modulation by task demands.

Show threadThe vOICe vision BCI 🧠🇪🇺Dec 7, 2023
Were the auditory stimuli "non-sensory"? "Future work could seek to further characterize changes in V1 activity along both of these task dimensions by investigating V1 activity during perceptually difficult auditory-guided decisions."
Show threadkari hoffmanDec 7, 2023
@seeingwithsound and all the multisensory research community comes together for one collective eye (and ear) roll?
Show threadThe vOICe vision BCI 🧠🇪🇺
@karihoffman
Well, 40 million people might benefit from a scientific breakthrough in this area.
Dec 7, 2023 at 11:56pmWeb
Show threadkari hoffmanDec 8, 2023
@seeingwithsound Yes!! As in, I can imagine more progress when research like this appreciates (ie recognizes) and expands on multisensory research! “Although it has been long been recognized that sensory cortices are not driven solely by bottom-up sensory inputs—the first single unit recordings reported attentional modulation of auditory responses in the cat [9]—there has recently been growing recognition of the importance of non-sensory responses in primary visual cortex (V1), such as those related to locomotion, arousal, and body movements [10–12].”
Show threadThe vOICe vision BCI 🧠🇪🇺Dec 8, 2023
@karihoffman Yes. Scientific interest and direction moves in waves, and droves. Renewed and focused interest in multisensory and crossmodal research may come, but it can easily take a few more decades, if not a century, after interest in invasive BCIs with electrodes wanes for all the messy trade-offs that it brings. Right now, BCIs offer many nice and well-defined (technical) challenges to PhD students, making it convenient for research groups that seek continuity. Understandable hysteresis. 🙂