Involvement of superior colliculus in complex figure detection of mice

J. Leonie Cazemier, Robin Haak, T. K.Loan Tran, Ann T.Y. Hsu, Medina Husic, Brandon D. Peri, Lisa Kirchberger, Matthew W. Self, Pieter Roelfsema, J. Alexander Heimel

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Object detection is an essential function of the visual system. Although the visual cortex plays an important role in object detection, the superior colliculus can support detection when the visual cortex is ablated or silenced. Moreover, it has been shown that superficial layers of mouse SC (sSC) encode visual features of complex objects, and that this code is not inherited from the primary visual cortex. This suggests that mouse sSC may provide a significant contribution to complex object vision. Here, we use optogenetics to show that mouse sSC is involved in figure detection based on differences in figure contrast, orientation, and phase. Additionally, our neural recordings show that in mouse sSC, image elements that belong to a figure elicit stronger activity than those same elements when they are part of the background. The discriminability of this neural code is higher for correct trials than for incorrect trials. Our results provide new insight into the behavioral relevance of the visual processing that takes place in sSC.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere83708
Pages (from-to)1-23
Number of pages23
JournaleLife
Volume13
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Jan 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024, Cazemier et al.

Funding

We thank Christiaan Levelt for sharing experimental facilities and Emma Ruimschotel for genotyping. We further thank Enny van Beest, Mehran Ahmadlou, Chris van der Togt, and Ulf Schnabel for sharing their expertise. J.L.C and J.A.H. were funded by FLAG-ERA grant CHAMPmouse through de Neder-landse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO).

FundersFunder number
CHAMPmouse through de Neder-landse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek

    Keywords

    • electrophysiology
    • mouse
    • neuroscience
    • object detection
    • optogenetics
    • superior colliculus
    • vision

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