The Population Map of Changes in the Spatiotemporal Sensitivity of Visual Neurons Across Saccadic Eye Movements

Abstract

Numerous physiological studies have reported changes in neurophysiological responses to visual stimuli around the time of saccadic eye movements in various brain areas. We have recently developed a statistical model framework capable of capturing fast dynamic changes in neuronal sensitivity across saccadic eye movements from the neural activity in extras-triate areas of nonhuman primates. Having obtained precise spatiotemporal processing kernels of neurons, representing the neurons’ spatiotemporal sensitivity, estimated using these models, we observed tremendous diversity in these changes in extras-triate cortex. Building upon this kernel-based description of perisaccadic sensitivity changes, we characterize and track the spatial and temporal dynamics of neurons across saccadic eye movements, and for a large population of extrastriate neurons. Such a network-level description is crucial for understanding the sources of these dynamics and interpreting their functional significance.