Perceptography unveils the causal contribution of inferior temporal cortex to visual perception

Shahbazi, Elia (author), Ma, Timothy (author), Pernuš, Martin (author), Scheirer, Walter J. (author), Afraz, Arash (author)

Neurons in the inferotemporal (IT) cortex respond selectively to complex visual features, implying their role in object perception. However, perception is subjective and cannot be read out from neural responses; thus, bridging the causal gap between neural activity and perception demands independent characterization of perception. Historically, though, the complexity of the perceptual alterations induced by artificial stimulation of IT cortex has rendered them impossible to quantify. To address this old problem, we tasked male macaque monkeys to detect and report optical impulses delivered to their IT cortex. Combining machine learning with high-throughput behavioral optogenetics, we generated complex and highly specific images that were hard for the animal to distinguish from the state of being cortically stimulated. These images, named “perceptograms” for the first time, reveal and depict the contents of the complex hallucinatory percepts induced by local neural perturbation in IT cortex. Furthermore, we found that the nature and magnitude of these hallucinations highly depend on concurrent visual input, stimulation location, and intensity. Objective characterization of stimulation-induced perceptual events opens the door to developing a mechanistic theory of visual perception. Further, it enables us to make better visual prosthetic devices and gain a greater understanding of visual hallucinations in mental disorders.

• Language: English
• Keywords: object perception, neural responses, perceptal alterations, behavioral optogenetics
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FE - Faculty of Electrical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: 11 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 15, art. 3347
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-175632
• UDC: 004.93
• ISSN on article: 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47356-8
• COBISS.SI-ID: 193479427
• Publication date in RUL: 06.11.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Nature communications
• Shortened title: Nat. Commun.
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• ISSN: 2041-1723
• COBISS.SI-ID: 2315876

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: zaznavanje objektov, nevronski odzivi, percepcijske spremembe, vedenjska optogenetika