Communications Biology (Jun 2023)

Cortical recurrence supports resilience to sensory variance in the primary visual cortex

  • Hugo J. Ladret,
  • Nelson Cortes,
  • Lamyae Ikan,
  • Frédéric Chavane,
  • Christian Casanova,
  • Laurent U. Perrinet

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-05042-3
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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Abstract Our daily endeavors occur in a complex visual environment, whose intrinsic variability challenges the way we integrate information to make decisions. By processing myriads of parallel sensory inputs, our brain is theoretically able to compute the variance of its environment, a cue known to guide our behavior. Yet, the neurobiological and computational basis of such variance computations are still poorly understood. Here, we quantify the dynamics of sensory variance modulations of cat primary visual cortex neurons. We report two archetypal neuronal responses, one of which is resilient to changes in variance and co-encodes the sensory feature and its variance, improving the population encoding of orientation. The existence of these variance-specific responses can be accounted for by a model of intracortical recurrent connectivity. We thus propose that local recurrent circuits process uncertainty as a generic computation, advancing our understanding of how the brain handles naturalistic inputs.