Performance in even a simple perceptual task depends on mouse secondary visual areas

  1. Hannah C Goldbach
  2. Bradley Akitake
  3. Caitlin E Leedy
  4. Mark H Histed  Is a corresponding author
  1. National Institutes of Health, United States

Abstract

Primary visual cortex (V1) in the mouse projects to numerous brain areas, including several secondary visual areas, frontal cortex, and basal ganglia. While it has been demonstrated that optogenetic silencing of V1 strongly impairs visually-guided behavior, it is not known which downstream areas are required for visual behaviors. Here we trained mice to perform a contrast-increment change detection task, for which substantial stimulus information is present in V1. Optogenetic silencing of visual responses in secondary visual areas revealed that their activity is required for even this simple visual task. In vivo electrophysiology showed that, although inhibiting secondary visual areas could produce some feedback effects in V1, the principal effect was profound suppression at the location of the optogenetic light. The results show that pathways through secondary visual areas are necessary for even simple visual behaviors.

Data availability

Data with plotting code are available at: https://github.com/histedlab/code-GoldbachAkitake-visareas-simpleperception

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Hannah C Goldbach

    National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-5697-4694
  2. Bradley Akitake

    National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1817-4573
  3. Caitlin E Leedy

    National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9277-5409
  4. Mark H Histed

    National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, United States
    For correspondence
    mark.histed@nih.gov
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8235-7908

Funding

National Institutes of Health (Intramural Program)

  • Mark H Histed

National Institutes of Health (U19NS107464)

  • Mark H Histed

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Tatiana Pasternak, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, United States

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All procedures were conducted in accordance with the guidelines and regulations of the National Institutes of Health, according to an approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocol (UNCB01) of the National Institute of Mental Health Intramural Program.

Version history

  1. Received: August 15, 2020
  2. Accepted: January 29, 2021
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: February 1, 2021 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: March 24, 2021 (version 2)

Copyright

This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.

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  1. Hannah C Goldbach
  2. Bradley Akitake
  3. Caitlin E Leedy
  4. Mark H Histed
(2021)
Performance in even a simple perceptual task depends on mouse secondary visual areas
eLife 10:e62156.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62156

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62156

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