Feedback contribution to surface motion perception in the human early visual cortex

• Published in: eLife Vol. 9
• Main Authors: Marquardt, Ingo, De Weerd, Peter, Schneider, Marian, Gulban, Omer Faruk, Ivanov, Dimo, Wang, Yawen, Uludağ, Kâmil
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England eLife Science Publications, Ltd 04.06.2020; eLife Sciences Publications Ltd; eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; cortical layers; Depth perception; Feedback; Feedback, Physiological; Female; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Humans; Image processing; laminar fMRI; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Motion detection; Motion Perception - physiology; Neurophysiology; Neuroscience; Photic Stimulation; Segmentation; surface motion perception; top-down; Visual cortex; Visual Cortex - physiology; Visual perception; Young Adult; cortical layers; feedback; visual cortex; neuroscience; laminar fMRI; human; top-down; surface motion perception
• ISSN: 2050-084X; 2050-084X
• DOI: 10.7554/eLife.50933

Human visual surface perception has neural correlates in early visual cortex, but the role of feedback during surface segmentation in human early visual cortex remains unknown. Feedback projections preferentially enter superficial and deep anatomical layers, which provides a hypothesis for the cortical depth distribution of fMRI activity related to feedback. Using ultra-high field fMRI, we report a depth distribution of activation in line with feedback during the (illusory) perception of surface motion. Our results fit with a signal re-entering in superficial depths of V1, followed by a feedforward sweep of the re-entered information through V2 and V3. The magnitude and sign of the BOLD response strongly depended on the presence of texture in the background, and was additionally modulated by the presence of illusory motion perception compatible with feedback. In summary, the present study demonstrates the potential of depth-resolved fMRI in tackling biomechanical questions on perception.