Spiral motion selective neurons in area MSTd contribute to judgments of heading 1

Spiral motion selective neurons in area MSTd contribute to judgments of heading.

Self-motion generates patterns of optic flow on the retina. Neurons in the dorsal part of the medial superior temporal area (MSTd) are selective for these optic flow patterns. It has been shown that neurons in this area that are selective for expanding optic flow fields are involved in heading judgments. We wondered how subpopulations of MSTd neurons, those tuned for expansion, rotation or spir...

Neurophysiol Hong Xu , Pascal Wallisch and David C . Bradley contribute to judgments of heading Spiral motion selective neurons in area MSTd

A neural model of motion processing and visual navigation by cortical area MST.

Cells in the dorsal medial superior temporal cortex (MSTd) process optic flow generated by self-motion during visually guided navigation. A neural model shows how interactions between well-known neural mechanisms (log polar cortical magnification, Gaussian motion-sensitive receptive fields, spatial pooling of motion-sensitive signals and subtractive extraretinal eye movement signals) lead to em...

Tuning of MST neurons to spiral motions.

Cells in the dorsal division of the medial superior temporal area (MSTd) have large receptive fields and respond to expansion/contraction, rotation, and translation motions. These same motions are generated as we move through the environment, leading investigators to suggest that area MSTd analyzes the optical flow. One influential idea suggests that navigation is achieved by decomposing the op...

Causal links between dorsal medial superior temporal area neurons and multisensory heading perception.

The dorsal medial superior temporal area (MSTd) in the extrastriate visual cortex is thought to play an important role in heading perception because neurons in this area are tuned to both optic flow and vestibular signals. MSTd neurons also show significant correlations with perceptual judgments during a fine heading direction discrimination task. To test for a causal link with heading percepti...