Influence of the thalamus on spatial visual processing in frontal cortex

Each of our movements activates our own sensory receptors, and therefore keeping track of self-movement is a necessary part of analysing sensory input. One way in which the brain keeps track of self-movement is by monitoring an internal copy, or corollary discharge, of motor commands. This concept could explain why we perceive a stable visual world despite our frequent quick, or saccadic, eye movements: corollary discharge about each saccade would permit the visual system to ignore saccade-induced visual changes. The critical missing link has been the connection between corollary discharge and visual processing. Here we show that such a link is formed by a corollary discharge from the thalamus that targets the frontal cortex. In the thalamus, neurons in the mediodorsal nucleus relay a corollary discharge of saccades from the midbrain superior colliculus to the cortical frontal eye field. In the frontal eye field, neurons use corollary discharge to shift their visual receptive fields spatially before saccades. We tested the hypothesis that these two components-a pathway for corollary discharge and neurons with shifting receptive fields-form a circuit in which the corollary discharge drives the shift. First we showed that the known spatial and temporal properties of the corollary discharge predict the dynamic changes in spatial visual processing of cortical neurons when saccades are made. Then we moved from this correlation to causation by isolating single cortical neurons and showing that their spatial visual processing is impaired when corollary discharge from the thalamus is interrupted. Thus the visual processing of frontal neurons is spatiotemporally matched with, and functionally dependent on, corollary discharge input from the thalamus. These experiments establish the first link between corollary discharge and visual processing, delineate a brain circuit that is well suited for mediating visual stability, and provide a framework for studying corollary discharge in other sensory systems.     

Postsaccadic visual references generate presaccadic compression of space

With every rapid gaze shift (saccade), our eyes experience a different view of the world. Stable perception of visual space requires that points in the new image are associated with corresponding points in the previous image. The brain may use an extraretinal eye position signal to compensate for gaze changes, or, alternatively, exploit the image contents to determine associated locations. Support for a uniform extraretinal signal comes from findings that the apparent position of objects briefly flashed around the time of a saccade is often shifted in the direction of the saccade. This view is challenged, however, by observations that the magnitude and direction of the displacement varies across the visual field. Led by the observation that non-uniform displacements typically occurred in studies conducted in slightly illuminated rooms, here we determine the dependence of perisaccadic mislocalization on the availability of visual spatial references at various times around a saccade. We find that presaccadic compression occurs only if visual references are available immediately after, rather than before or during, the saccade. Our findings indicate that the visual processes of transsaccadic spatial localization use mainly postsaccadic visual information.     

A sensory source for motor variation

Suppose that the variability in our movements is caused not by noise in the motor system itself, nor by fluctuations in our intentions or plans, but rather by errors in our sensory estimates of the external parameters that define the appropriate action. For tasks in which precision is at a premium, performance would be optimal if no noise were added in movement planning and execution: motor output would be as accurate as possible given the quality of sensory inputs. Here we use visually guided smooth-pursuit eye movements in primates as a testing ground for this notion of optimality. In response to repeated presentations of identical target motions, nearly 92% of the variance in eye trajectory can be accounted for as a consequence of errors in sensory estimates of the speed, direction and timing of target motion, plus a small background noise that is observed both during eye movements and during fixations. The magnitudes of the inferred sensory errors agree with the observed thresholds for sensory discrimination by perceptual systems, suggesting that the very different neural processes of perception and action are limited by the same sources of noise.     

Humans use internal models to estimate gravity and linear acceleration

Because sensory systems often provide ambiguous information, neural processes must exist to resolve these ambiguities. It is likely that similar neural processes are used by different sensory systems. For example, many tasks require neural processing to distinguish linear acceleration from gravity, but Einstein's equivalence principle states that all linear accelerometers must measure both linear acceleration and gravity. Here we investigate whether the brain uses internal models, defined as neural systems that mimic physical principles, to help estimate linear acceleration and gravity. Internal models may be used in motor contro, sensorimotor integration and sensory processing, but direct experimental evidence for such models is limited. To determine how humans process ambiguous gravity and linear acceleration cues, subjects were tilted after being rotated at a constant velocity about an Earth-vertical axis. We show that the eye movements evoked by this post-rotational tilt include a response component that compensates for the estimated linear acceleration even when no actual linear acceleration occurs. These measured responses are consistent with our internal model predictions that the nervous system can develop a non-zero estimate of linear acceleration even when no true linear acceleration is present.     

解周期初值问题的三角拟合两步方法

在很多由微分方程表征的应用系统中,经常面对有周期解微分方程的求解问题.由于微分方程周期解具有振荡特性,使得一些经典方法,如常系数数值等方法求解这类问题难以得到较好的结果.本文基于Adams-Bashforth经典方法,通过构造迭代方程,给出了求解具有周期初值问题的三角拟合法,并对该方法的稳定性进行了分析.数值试验表明,该方法可较好解决有周期解微分方程的求解问题.     

Selective gating of visual signals by microstimulation of frontal cortex

Several decades of psychophysical and neurophysiological studies have established that visual signals are enhanced at the locus of attention. What remains a mystery is the mechanism that initiates biases in the strength of visual representations. Recent evidence argues that, during spatial attention, these biases reflect nascent saccadic eye movement commands. We examined the functional interaction of saccade preparation and visual coding by electrically stimulating sites within the frontal eye fields (FEF) and measuring its effect on the activity of neurons in extrastriate visual cortex. Here we show that visual responses in area V4 could be enhanced after brief stimulation of retinotopically corresponding sites within the FEF using currents below that needed to evoke saccades. The magnitude of the enhancement depended on the effectiveness of receptive field stimuli as well as on the presence of competing stimuli outside the receptive field. Stimulation of non-corresponding FEF representations could suppress V4 responses. The results suggest that the gain of visual signals is modified according to the strength of spatially corresponding eye movement commands.     

Connecting Language with Perception and Action for Human-robot Interaction

To build robots that engage in intuitive communication with people by natural language, we are developing a new knowledge representation called conceptual network model.The conceptual network connects natural language concepts with visual perception including color perception, shape perception, size perception, and spatial perception. In the implementation of spatial perception, we present a computational model based on spatial template theory to interpret qualitative spatial expressions. Based on the conceptual network model, our mobile robot can understand user＇s instructions and recognize the object referred to by the user and perform appropriate action. Experimental results show our approach promising.     

言语知觉中的感觉运动整合机制

 大脑如何感知和理解言语是心理学和脑科学研究的重要问题之一。近年来,言语产出相关的皮层言语运动系统（SMS）通常被认为以代偿调节方式参与有噪音干扰和/或信息缺失情况下的言语知觉中。本研究采用功能性核磁共振成像（fMRI）技术考查在噪音干扰下的音节辨识任务中的感觉运动整合机制。研究1发现,SMS的参与程度随语音辨识难度增加而增加、在噪音干扰下比听皮层具有更高的音位特异性编码和表征能力,并且在难度适中时对听皮层编码代偿作用最大。研究2发现,听力正常的老年人在噪音干扰下存在音节辨识困难,且比年轻人更加依赖SMS的活动增加以及较少受到老化和噪音影响的言语运动表征以代偿听觉加工能力的下降。本研究不仅加深了对言语知觉中跨通道感觉运动信息整合机制及其毕生发展机制的认识,还为帮助听力受损或正常的老年人设计和开展言语交流康复训练方案提供了新的视角和启发。     

Representation of a perceptual decision in developing oculomotor commands

Behaviour often depends on the ability to make categorical judgements about sensory information acquired over time. Such judgements require a comparison of the evidence favouring the alternatives, but how the brain forms these comparisons is unknown. Here we show that in a visual discrimination task, the accumulating balance of sensory evidence favouring one interpretation over another is evident in the neural circuits that generate the behavioural response. We trained monkeys to make a direction judgement about dynamic random-dot motions and to indicate their judgement with an eye movement to a visual target. We interrupted motion viewing with electrical microstimulation of the frontal eye field and analysed the resulting, evoked eye movements for evidence of ongoing activity associated with the oculomotor response. Evoked eye movements deviated in the direction of the monkey's judgement. The magnitude of the deviation depended on motion strength and viewing time. The oculomotor signals responsible for these deviations reflected the accumulated motion information that informed the monkey's choices on the discrimination task. Thus, for this task, decision formation and motor preparation appear to share a common level of neural organization.     

Primary motor cortex underlies multi-joint integration for fast feedback control

A basic difficulty for the nervous system is integrating locally ambiguous sensory information to form accurate perceptions about the outside world. This local-to-global problem is also fundamental to motor control of the arm, because complex mechanical interactions between shoulder and elbow allow a particular amount of motion at one joint to arise from an infinite combination of shoulder and elbow torques. Here we show, in humans and rhesus monkeys, that a transcortical pathway through primary motor cortex (M1) resolves this ambiguity during fast feedback control. We demonstrate that single M1 neurons of behaving monkeys can integrate shoulder and elbow motion information into motor commands that appropriately counter the underlying torque within about 50 milliseconds of a mechanical perturbation. Moreover, we reveal a causal link between M1 processing and multi-joint integration in humans by showing that shoulder muscle responses occurring ～50 milliseconds after pure elbow displacement can be potentiated by transcranial magnetic stimulation. Taken together, our results show that transcortical processing through M1 permits feedback responses to express a level of sophistication that rivals voluntary control; this provides neurophysiological support for influential theories positing that voluntary movement is generated by the intelligent manipulation of sensory feedback.     

Illusory shifts in visual direction accompany adaptation of saccadic eye movements.

A central problem in human vision is to explain how the visual world remains stable despite the continual displacements of the retinal image produced by rapid saccadic movements of the eyes. Perceived stability has been attributed to 'efferent-copy' signals, representing the saccadic motor commands, that cancel the effects of saccade-related retinal displacements. Here we show, by means of a perceptual illusion, that traditional cancellation theories cannot explain stability. The perceptual illusion was produced by first inducing adaptive changes in saccadic gain (ratio of saccade size to target eccentricity). Following adaptation, subjects experienced an illusory mislocalization in which widely separated targets flashed before and after saccades appeared to be in the same place. The illusion shows that the perceptual system did not take the adaptive changes into account. Perceptual localization is based on signals representing the size of the initially-intended saccade, not the size of the saccade that is ultimately executed. Signals representing intended saccades initiate a visual comparison process used to maintain perceptual stability across saccades and to generate the oculomotor error signals that ensure saccadic accuracy.     

Optimal eye movement strategies in visual search

To perform visual search, humans, like many mammals, encode a large field of view with retinas having variable spatial resolution, and then use high-speed eye movements to direct the highest-resolution region, the fovea, towards potential target locations. Good search performance is essential for survival, and hence mammals may have evolved efficient strategies for selecting fixation locations. Here we address two questions: what are the optimal eye movement strategies for a foveated visual system faced with the problem of finding a target in a cluttered environment, and do humans employ optimal eye movement strategies during a search? We derive the ideal bayesian observer for search tasks in which a target is embedded at an unknown location within a random background that has the spectral characteristics of natural scenes. Our ideal searcher uses precise knowledge about the statistics of the scenes in which the target is embedded, and about its own visual system, to make eye movements that gain the most information about target location. We find that humans achieve nearly optimal search performance, even though humans integrate information poorly across fixations. Analysis of the ideal searcher reveals that there is little benefit from perfect integration across fixations--much more important is efficient processing of information on each fixation. Apparently, evolution has exploited this fact to achieve efficient eye movement strategies with minimal neural resources devoted to memory.     

异步电机的优化设计新方法

现有的对电机优化设计方法的研究主要是采用新的数值算法或对原有数值算法进行改进 ,而没有从电机设计公式本身出发做过研究。为了使现有的优化数值算法都能不经修改就应用到电机设计实践中 ,基于新的电机尺寸设计公式 ,提出了一种新的优化设计策略 ,对自变量进行了适当选取 ,解决了传统优化设计中需要考虑的离散变量问题 ,使全局收敛的可能性大大提高。对两个算例的优化计算表明 ,该方法是一种有效的优化设计方法 ,适用于各种优化算法的研究。     

Neurons compute internal models of the physical laws of motion

A critical step in self-motion perception and spatial awareness is the integration of motion cues from multiple sensory organs that individually do not provide an accurate representation of the physical world. One of the best-studied sensory ambiguities is found in visual processing, and arises because of the inherent uncertainty in detecting the motion direction of an untextured contour moving within a small aperture. A similar sensory ambiguity arises in identifying the actual motion associated with linear accelerations sensed by the otolith organs in the inner ear. These internal linear accelerometers respond identically during translational motion (for example, running forward) and gravitational accelerations experienced as we reorient the head relative to gravity (that is, head tilt). Using new stimulus combinations, we identify here cerebellar and brainstem motion-sensitive neurons that compute a solution to the inertial motion detection problem. We show that the firing rates of these populations of neurons reflect the computations necessary to construct an internal model representation of the physical equations of motion.     

A mechanism for impaired fear recognition after amygdala damage

Ten years ago, we reported that SM, a patient with rare bilateral amygdala damage, showed an intriguing impairment in her ability to recognize fear from facial expressions. Since then, the importance of the amygdala in processing information about facial emotions has been borne out by a number of lesion and functional imaging studies. Yet the mechanism by which amygdala damage compromises fear recognition has not been identified. Returning to patient SM, we now show that her impairment stems from an inability to make normal use of information from the eye region of faces when judging emotions, a defect we trace to a lack of spontaneous fixations on the eyes during free viewing of faces. Although SM fails to look normally at the eye region in all facial expressions, her selective impairment in recognizing fear is explained by the fact that the eyes are the most important feature for identifying this emotion. Notably, SM's recognition of fearful faces became entirely normal when she was instructed explicitly to look at the eyes. This finding provides a mechanism to explain the amygdala's role in fear recognition, and points to new approaches for the possible rehabilitation of patients with defective emotion perception.     

Doping semiconductor nanocrystals

Doping--the intentional introduction of impurities into a material--is fundamental to controlling the properties of bulk semiconductors. This has stimulated similar efforts to dope semiconductor nanocrystals. Despite some successes, many of these efforts have failed, for reasons that remain unclear. For example, Mn can be incorporated into nanocrystals of CdS and ZnSe (refs 7-9), but not into CdSe (ref. 12)--despite comparable bulk solubilities of near 50 per cent. These difficulties, which have hindered development of new nanocrystalline materials, are often attributed to 'self-purification', an allegedly intrinsic mechanism whereby impurities are expelled. Here we show instead that the underlying mechanism that controls doping is the initial adsorption of impurities on the nanocrystal surface during growth. We find that adsorption--and therefore doping efficiency--is determined by three main factors: surface morphology, nanocrystal shape, and surfactants in the growth solution. Calculated Mn adsorption energies and equilibrium shapes for several nanocrystals lead to specific doping predictions. These are confirmed by measuring how the Mn concentration in ZnSe varies with nanocrystal size and shape. Finally, we use our predictions to incorporate Mn into previously undopable CdSe nanocrystals. This success establishes that earlier difficulties with doping are not intrinsic, and suggests that a variety of doped nanocrystals--for applications from solar cells to spintronics--can be anticipated.     

Embryonic assembly of a central pattern generator without sensory input

Locomotion depends on the integration of sensory information with the activity of central circuitry, which generates patterned discharges in motor nerves to appropriate muscles. Isolated central networks generate fictive locomotor rhythms (recorded in the absence of movement), indicating that the fundamental pattern of motor output depends on the intrinsic connectivity and electrical properties of these central circuits. Sensory inputs are required to modify the pattern of motor activity in response to the actual circumstances of real movement. A central issue for our understanding of how locomotor circuits are specified and assembled is the extent to which sensory inputs are required as such systems develop. Here we describe the effects of eliminating sensory function and structure on the development of the peristaltic motor pattern of Drosophila embryos and larvae. We infer that the circuitry for peristaltic crawling develops in the complete absence of sensory input; however, the integration of this circuitry into actual patterns of locomotion requires additional information from the sensory system. In the absence of sensory inputs, the polarity of movement is deranged, and backward peristaltic waves predominate at the expense of forward peristalsis.     

具有最佳收敛性的积分方程小波配置算法

通过调整截断参数,构造具有弱奇异核或者奇异核的第二类积分方程小波快速算法,并证明算法具有最佳收敛阶,同时,复杂度仍保持几乎最佳.     

一种新的基于改进实时双通滤波器的信号数字积分方案

信号积分是重要的测试测量技术手段,本文综合论述了信号数字积分问题的提出、数字积分中面临的问题及解决方法。着重研究了信号数字积分技术的核心问题,即低频噪声造成的积分器不稳定问题。本文首先将一种改进的实时双通滤波算法应用于低频干扰消除,以解决积分器不稳定问题。其次,本文研究对比了目前多种数字积分算法的优缺点及性能,选择了目前最优的数字积分算法。将选择出的积分算法与实时双通滤波结合,保证了积分后信号幅值、相位精确不失真,并且保证了数字积分的实时性;从而为数字积分在测试测量及其它相关应用领域的推广应用奠定了基础。仿真研究表明,本文的方案具有较好的精度。     

基于视觉感知的立体图像零水印算法研究

人眼感知立体图像,主要是对图像内容和深度信息的感知,而视点之间的差异是形成立体图像深度感知的一个重要原因。本文基于人眼视觉感知特性,提出了视点零水印和视差零水印算法,视点零水印将视点图像的亮度Y分量分块做DCT变换,并根据DCT域中低频系数的大小关系来构造视点零水印,提高了水印的鲁棒性和不可见性;视差零水印通过求取左右视图的视差值,搜索得到左右视图的匹配区域,根据匹配区域内左右图像块的DC系数大小关系来构造视差零水印。统计两类零水印恢复率,达到对立体图像质量和立体感知质量客观评价的目的。实验结果表明,该水印算法具有良好的鲁棒性和不可见性,通过水印恢复率客观评价图像质量和立体感知质量,与人眼主观评价具有一致性。