Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268

The ability to group stimuli into meaningful categories is a fundamental cognitive process. To explore its neural basis, we trained monkeys to categorize computer-generated stimuli as "cats" and "dogs." A morphing system was used to systematically vary stimulus shape and precisely define the category boundary. Neural activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex reflected the category of visual stimuli, even when a monkey was retrained with the stimuli assigned to new categories.

/pdf/categorical-representation-of-visual-stimuli-in-the-primate-47gjsj71i7.pdf

Categorical Representation of Visual Stimuli in the Primate Prefrontal Cortex

When natural scenes are viewed, a multitude of objects that are stable in their environments are brought in and out of view by eye movements. The posterior parietal cortex is crucial for the analysis of space, visual attention and movement 1 . Neurons in one of its subdivisions, the lateral intraparietal area (LIP), have visual responses to stimuli appearing abruptly at particular retinal locations (their receptive fields)2. We have tested the responses of LIP neurons to stimuli that entered their receptive field by saccades. Neurons had little or no response to stimuli brought into their receptive field by saccades, unless the stimuli were behaviourally significant. We established behavioural significance in two ways: either by making a stable stimulus task-relevant, or by taking advantage of the attentional attraction of an abruptly appearing stimulus. Our results show that under ordinary circumstances the entire visual world is only weakly represented in LIP. The visual representation in LIP is sparse, with only the most salient or behaviourally relevant objects being strongly represented.

The representation of visual salience in monkey parietal cortex

A central challenge for cognitive and systems neuroscience is to relate the incredibly complex behavior of animals to the equally complex activity of their brains. Recently described, large-scale neural models have not bridged this gap between neural activity and biological function. In this work, we present a 2.5-million-neuron model of the brain (called “Spaun”) that bridges this gap by exhibiting many different behaviors. The model is presented only with visual image sequences, and it draws all of its responses with a physically modeled arm. Although simplified, the model captures many aspects of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and psychological behavior, which we demonstrate via eight diverse tasks.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/338/6111/1202.full.pdf

A Large-Scale Model of the Functioning Brain

It is widely assumed that human learning and the structure of human languages are intimately related. This relationship is frequently suggested to derive from a language-specific biological endowment, which encodes universal, but communicatively arbitrary, principles of language structure (a Universal Grammar or UG). How might such a UG have evolved? We argue that UG could not have arisen either by biological adaptation or non-adaptationist genetic processes, resulting in a logical problem of language evolution. Specifically, as the processes of language change are much more rapid than processes of genetic change, language constitutes a "moving target" both over time and across different human populations, and, hence, cannot provide a stable environment to which language genes could have adapted. We conclude that a biologically determined UG is not evolutionarily viable. Instead, the original motivation for UG - the mesh between learners and languages - arises because language has been shaped to fit the human brain, rather than vice versa. Following Darwin, we view language itself as a complex and interdependent "organism," which evolves under selectional pressures from human learning and processing mechanisms. That is, languages themselves are shaped by severe selectional pressure from each generation of language users and learners. This suggests that apparently arbitrary aspects of linguistic structure may result from general learning and processing biases deriving from the structure of thought processes, perceptuo-motor factors, cognitive limitations, and pragmatics.

/pdf/language-as-shaped-by-the-brain-24xipzkzns.pdf

Language as shaped by the brain

Topographic representation of the human body in the occipitotemporal cortex.

The recall of a list of items in a serial order is a basic cognitive skill1. However, it is unknown whether a list of arbitrary items is remembered by associations between sequential items2,3 or by associations between each item and its ordinal position4. Here, to study the nonverbal strategies used for such memory tasks5,6,7,8,9, we trained three macaque monkeys on a delayed sequence recall task. Thirty abstract images, divided into ten triplets, were presented repeatedly in fixed temporal order. On each trial the monkeys viewed three sequentially presented sample stimuli, followed by a test stimulus consisting of the same three images and a distractor image (chosen randomly from the remaining 27). The task was to touch the three images in their original order without touching the distractor. The most common error was touching the distractor when it had the same ordinal number (in its own triplet) as the correct image. Thus, the monkeys' natural tendency was to categorize images by their ordinal number. Additional, secondary strategies were used eventually to avoid the distractor images. These included memory of the sample images (working memory) and associations between sequence triplet members. Thus, monkeys use multiple mnemonic strategies according to their innate tendencies and the requirements of the task.

Macaque monkeys categorize images by their ordinal number

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(07)01484-4.pdf

Superior serial memory in the blind: a case of cognitive compensatory adjustment.

The human brain contains multiple hand-selective areas, in both the sensorimotor and visual systems. Could our brain repurpose neural resources, originally developed for supporting hand function, to represent and control artificial limbs? We studied individuals with congenital or acquired hand-loss (hereafter one-handers) using functional MRI. We show that the more one-handers use an artificial limb (prosthesis) in their everyday life, the stronger visual hand-selective areas in the lateral occipitotemporal cortex respond to prosthesis images. This was found even when one-handers were presented with images of active prostheses that share the functionality of the hand but not necessarily its visual features (e.g. a 'hook' prosthesis). Further, we show that daily prosthesis usage determines large-scale inter-network communication across hand-selective areas. This was demonstrated by increased resting state functional connectivity between visual and sensorimotor hand-selective areas, proportional to the intensiveness of everyday prosthesis usage. Further analysis revealed a 3-fold coupling between prosthesis activity, visuomotor connectivity and usage, suggesting a possible role for the motor system in shaping use-dependent representation in visual hand-selective areas, and/or vice versa. Moreover, able-bodied control participants who routinely observe prosthesis usage (albeit less intensively than the prosthesis users) showed significantly weaker associations between degree of prosthesis observation and visual cortex activity or connectivity. Together, our findings suggest that altered daily motor behaviour facilitates prosthesis-related visual processing and shapes communication across hand-selective areas. This neurophysiological substrate for prosthesis embodiment may inspire rehabilitation approaches to improve usage of existing substitutionary devices and aid implementation of future assistive and augmentative technologies.

Tanya Orlov

Papers

Topographic representation of the human body in the occipitotemporal cortex.

Macaque monkeys categorize images by their ordinal number

Superior serial memory in the blind: a case of cognitive compensatory adjustment.

Artificial limb representation in amputees

Normal and abnormal fMRI activation patterns in the visual cortex after recovery from optic neuritis