Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T13:51:09.616Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How task-related are the responses of inferior temporal neurons?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2009

Rufin Vogels ,
Gyula Sáry  and
Guy A. Orban
Rufin Vogels
Affiliation:
Laboratorium voor Neuro-en Psychofysiologie, KULeuven, Campus Gasthuisberg, B-3000, Leuven, Belgium
Gyula Sáry
Affiliation:
Laboratorium voor Neuro-en Psychofysiologie, KULeuven, Campus Gasthuisberg, B-3000, Leuven, Belgium
Guy A. Orban
Affiliation:
Laboratorium voor Neuro-en Psychofysiologie, KULeuven, Campus Gasthuisberg, B-3000, Leuven, Belgium
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The responses of inferior temporal (IT) neurons may depend on the behavioral context of the stimuli; e.g. in Konorski tasks responses to two successively presented physically identical stimuli can be markedly different. This effect has been interpreted as being linked to the behavioral task, and to be involved in short-term memory and/or the temporal comparison of successively presented stimuli. We tested whether this behavioral context effect also occurs when the monkey is not executing a Konorski task, i.e. no temporal comparison of stimuli is being performed. Responses of the same IT neurons under two behavioral conditions were compared using the same temporal stimulus sequence (but different stimuli): a Konorski task and a Fixation task. We found that the occurrence of the behavioral context effect did not depend on the execution of the short-term memory task. The observed decline in the level of responses to repeated presentation of similar stimuli is interpreted as being a passive mechanism involved in recency detection, which occurs even if the recency information is not useful for the task. The importance of these results in the interpretation of “task-related” neuronal responses is discussed.

Keywords

Inferior temporal cortexMemoryVisual discriminationTask-related effects
Type
Research Articles
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , March 1995 , pp. 207 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baylis, G.C. & Rolls, E.T. (1987). Responses of neurons in the inferior temporal cortex in short term and serial recognition memory tasks. Experimental Brain Research 65, 614–622.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chelazzi, L., Miller, E.K., Duncan, J. & Desimone, R. (1993). A neural basis for visual search in inferior temporal cortex. Nature 363, 345–347.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Desimone, R., Allbright, T.D., Gross, C.G. & Bruce, C.J. (1984). Stimulus-selective properties of inferior temporal neurons in the macaque. Journal of Neuroscience 4, 2051–2062.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eskandar, E.N., Richmond, B.J. & Optican, L.M. (1992 a). Role of inferior temporal neurons in visual memory I. Temporal encoding of information about visual images, recalled images, and behavioral context. Journal of Neurophysiology 68, 1277–1295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eskandar, E.N., Optican, L.M. & Richmond, B.J. (1992 b). Role of inferior temporal neurons in visual memory II. Multiplying temporal waveforms related to vision and memory. Journal of Neurophysiology 68, 1296–1306.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fahy, F.L., Riches, I.P. & Brown, M.W. (1993). Neuronal activity related to visual recognition memory: Long-term memory and the encoding of recency and familiarity information in the primate anterior and medial inferior temporal and rhinal cortex. Experimental Brain Research 96, 457–472.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fuster, J.M. & Jervey, J.P. (1981). Inferotemporal neurons distinguish and retain behaviorally relevant features of visual stimuli. Science 212, 952–955.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gross, C.G., Bender, D.B. & Gerstein, G.L. (1979). Activity of inferior temporal neurons in behaving monkeys. Neuropsychologia 17, 215–229.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gross, C.G., Rocha-Miranda, C.E. & Bender, D.B. (1972). Visual properties in inferotemporal cortex of the macaque. Journal of Neurophysiology 35, 96–111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Li, L., Miller, E.A. & Desimone, R. (1993). The representation of stimulus familiarity in anterior inferior temporal cortex. Journal of Neurophysiology 69, 1–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mikami, A. & Kubota, K. (1980). Inferotemporal neurons activities and color discrimination with delay. Brain Research 182, 65–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, E.K. & Desimone, R. (1994). Parallel neuronal mechanisms for short-term memory. Science 263, 520–523.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, E.K., Li, L. & Desimone, R. (1991). A neural mechanism for working and recognition memory in inferior temporal cortex. Science 254, 1377–1379.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, E.K., Li, L. & Desimone, R. (1993). Activity in anterior inferior temporal cortex during a short-term memory task. Journal of Neuroscience 13, 1460–1478.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mishkin, M. (1982). A memory system in the monkey. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London (Biology) 298, 83–95.Google ScholarPubMed
Miyashita, Y. & Chang, H.S. (1988). Neuronal correlate of pictorial short-term memory in the primate visual cortex. Nature 331, 68–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riches, I.P., Wilson, F.A.W. & Brown, M.W. (1991). The effects of visual stimulation and memory on neurons of the hippocampal formation and the neighboring parahippocampal gyrus and inferior temporal cortex of the primate. Journal of Neuroscience 11, 1763–1779.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sary, G.Y., Vogels, R. & Orban, G.A. (1993). Cue-invariant shape selectivity of macaque inferior temporal neurons. Science 260, 995–997.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tanaka, K., Saito, H., Fukuda, Y. & Moriya, M. (1991). Coding visual images of objects in the inferotemporal cortex of the Macaque monkey. Journal of Neurophysiology 66, 170–189.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ungerleider, L.G. & Mishkin, M. (1982). Two cortical visual systems. In Analysis of Visual Behavior, ed. Ingle, D.J., Goodale, M.A. & Mansfield, R.J.W., pp. 549–586. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Vogels, R. & Orban, G.A. (1990). How well do response changes of striate neurons signal differences in orientation: A study in the discriminating monkey. Journal of Neuroscience 10, 3543–3558.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vogels, R. & Orban, G.A. (1994). Activity of inferior temporal neurons during orientation discrimination with successively presented gratings. Journal of Neurophysiology 71, 1428–1451.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed