A dual role of prestimulus spontaneous neural activity in visual object recognition

Ella Podvalny; Matthew W. Flounders; Leana E. King; Tom Holroyd; Biyu J. He

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-11877-4

A dual role of prestimulus spontaneous neural activity in visual object recognition

Ella Podvalny, Matthew W. Flounders, Leana E. King, Tom Holroyd, Biyu J. He

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

52 Scopus citations

Abstract

Vision relies on both specific knowledge of visual attributes, such as object categories, and general brain states, such as those reflecting arousal. We hypothesized that these phenomena independently influence recognition of forthcoming stimuli through distinct processes reflected in spontaneous neural activity. Here, we recorded magnetoencephalographic (MEG) activity in participants (N = 24) who viewed images of objects presented at recognition threshold. Using multivariate analysis applied to sensor-level activity patterns recorded before stimulus presentation, we identified two neural processes influencing subsequent subjective recognition: a general process, which disregards stimulus category and correlates with pupil size, and a specific process, which facilitates category-specific recognition. The two processes are doubly-dissociable: the general process correlates with changes in criterion but not in sensitivity, whereas the specific process correlates with changes in sensitivity but not in criterion. Our findings reveal distinct mechanisms of how spontaneous neural activity influences perception and provide a framework to integrate previous findings.

Original language	English
Article number	3910
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	10
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11877-4
State	Published - 2 Sep 2019
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).

Funding

This research was supported by National Science Foundation CAREER Award (BCS-1753218, to BJH) and NIH/NINDS Intramural Research Program Transition Funds (to BJH). We thank Tashi Dolma for assistance in experimental paradigm development and testing, Enora Rice for helping with MEG data pre-processing, Max Levinson, Richard Hardstone and Thomas J. Baumgarten for comments on the paper. Graphic elements for figures were downloaded from https://publicdomainvectors.org/.

Funders	Funder number
NIH/NINDS
National Science Foundation	BCS-1753218
Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences	1753218

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A dual role of prestimulus spontaneous neural activity in visual object recognition

Abstract

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