Study of cortical mechanisms for transsaccadic memory remapping

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K18339
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Neurophysiology / General neuroscience
• Research Institution: Hokkaido University
• Principal Investigator: INABA NAOKO 北海道大学, 医学研究院, 助教 (20432370)
• Research Collaborator: KAWANO Kenji
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: サッケード / 視覚ニューロン / 受容野 / MST野 / 視覚情報処理 / 運動視

Outline of Final Research Achievements

After a saccade, most MST neurons respond to moving visual stimuli that had existed in their post-saccadic receptive fields and turned off before the saccade ("trans-saccadic memory remapping"). Neuronal responses in higher visual processing areas are known to be modulated in relation to gaze angle to represent image location in spatiotopic coordinates. In the present study, we investigated the eye position effects after saccades and found that the gaze angle modulated the visual sensitivity of MST neurons after saccades both to the actually existing visual stimuli and to the visual memory traces remapped by the saccades. We suggest that two mechanisms, trans-saccadic memory remapping and gaze modulation, work cooperatively in individual MST neurons to represent a continuous visual world.

Free Research Field

システム神経生理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究により得られた知見は，私たちが絶えず行っている様々な視覚情報処理の脳内メカニズムの解明に不可欠であると同時に，脳機能障害の診断及び機能改善などに役立つことが期待されている。