A parsimonious computational model of visual target position encoding in the superior colliculus
Biol Cybern. 2015-09-05; 109(4-5): 549-559
DOI: 10.1007/s00422-015-0660-8
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1. Biol Cybern. 2015 Oct;109(4-5):549-59. doi: 10.1007/s00422-015-0660-8. Epub 2015
Sep 5.
A parsimonious computational model of visual target position encoding in the
superior colliculus.
Taouali W(1), Goffart L(2), Alexandre F(3)(4)(5), Rougier NP(3)(4)(5).
Author information:
(1)Institut de Neurobiologie de la Méditerrantée, INSERM, UMR 901, Aix-Marseille
University, Marseille, France. .
(2)Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, CNRS, UMR 7289, Aix-Marseille
University, Marseille, France.
(3)INRIA Bordeaux Sud-West, Talence, France.
(4)LaBRI, Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux INP, UMR 5800, Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique, Talence, France.
(5)Institut des Maladies Neurodégénératives, Université de Bordeaux, UMR 5293,
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Bordeaux, France.
The superior colliculus (SC) is a brainstem structure at the crossroad of
multiple functional pathways. Several neurophysiological studies suggest that the
population of active neurons in the SC encodes the location of a visual target to
foveate, pursue or attend to. Although extensive research has been carried out on
computational modeling, most of the reported models are often based on complex
mechanisms and explain a limited number of experimental results. This suggests
that a key aspect may have been overlooked in the design of previous
computational models. After a careful study of the literature, we hypothesized
that the representation of the whole retinal stimulus (not only its center) might
play an important role in the dynamics of SC activity. To test this hypothesis,
we designed a model of the SC which is built upon three well-accepted principles:
the log-polar representation of the visual field onto the SC, the interplay
between a center excitation and a surround inhibition and a simple neuronal
dynamics, like the one proposed by the dynamic neural field theory. Results show
that the retinotopic organization of the collicular activity conveys an implicit
computation that deeply impacts the target selection process.
DOI: 10.1007/s00422-015-0660-8
PMID: 26342605 [Indexed for MEDLINE]