Cortical recurrence supports resilience to sensory variance in the primary visual cortex.

ABSTRACT: Our daily endeavors occur in a complex visual environment, whose intrinsic variability challenges the way we integrate information to make decisions. By processing myriads of parallel sensory inputs, our brain is theoretically able to compute the variance of its environment, a cue known to guide our behavior. Yet, the neurobiological and computational basis of such variance computations are still poorly understood. Here, we quantify the dynamics of sensory variance modulations of cat primary visual cortex neurons. We report two archetypal neuronal responses, one of which is resilient to changes in variance and co-encodes the sensory feature and its variance, improving the population encoding of orientation. The existence of these variance-specific responses can be accounted for by a model

SUBMITTER: Ladret HJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10290066 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature