Bernardo Andrade Ortega: Deeplabcut of pupil movement to decipher visual cortical activity

BCCN Berlin / Technische Universität Berlin

Abstract

We constantly receive sensory information that fluctuates over time. How are we able to distinguish the changes produced by the environment itself vs the ones produced by our own movements? In the case of the visual system, movements such as saccades and variations in pupil size change the sensory input in the retina. Here, we studied how the circuit of the primary visual cortex (V1) responds to these changes. We found that thalamic-axons, V1 excitatory and V1 inhibitory neurons respond to saccades and keep a code of the saccade direction. Moreover, thalamocortical axons seem more correlated to pupil size than V1 neurons. These results indicate that sensory input changes produced by body movements are represented in V1.

 

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Additional information:

Master thesis defense

 

Organized by:

Prof. Dietmar Schmitz & Dr. Roman Rossi-Pool