Affiliation:
1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
2. Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute, Johns Hopkins University
3. Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Abstract
When your head tilts laterally, as in sports, reaching, and resting, your eyes counterrotate less than 20%, and thus eye images rotate, over a total range of about 180°. Yet, the world appears stable and vision remains normal. We discovered a neural strategy for rotational stability in anterior inferotemporal cortex (IT), the final stage of object vision in primates. We measured object orientation tuning of IT neurons in macaque monkeys tilted +25 and –25° laterally, producing ~40° difference in retinal image orientation. Among IT neurons with consistent object orientation tuning, 63% remained stable with respect to gravity across tilts. Gravitational tuning depended on vestibular/somatosensory but also visual cues, consistent with previous evidence that IT processes scene cues for gravity’s orientation. In addition to stability across image rotations, an internal gravitational reference frame is important for physical understanding of a world where object position, posture, structure, shape, movement, and behavior interact critically with gravity.
Funder
National Institutes of Health
Office of Naval Research
Publisher
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Subject
General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine,General Neuroscience