title: Priming with real motion biases visual cortical response to bistable apparent motion.
abstract: Apparent motion quartet is an ambiguous stimulus that elicits bistable perception, with the perceived motion alternating between two orthogonal paths. In human psychophysical experiments, the probability of perceiving motion in each path is greatly enhanced by a brief exposure to real motion along that path. To examine the neural mechanism underlying this priming effect, we used voltage-sensitive dye (VSD) imaging to measure the spatiotemporal activity in the primary visual cortex (V1) of awake mice. We found that a brief real motion stimulus transiently biased the cortical response to subsequent apparent motion toward the spatiotemporal pattern representing the real motion. Furthermore, intracellular recording from V1 neurons in anesthetized mice showed a similar increase in subthreshold depolarization in the neurons representing the path of real motion. Such short-term plasticity in early visual circuits may contribute to the priming effect in bistable visual perception.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience,  Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031,  China.
authors.forename: Qing-fang
authors.initials: QF
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Yunqing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.forename: Deng
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: She
authors.forename: Jian-young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Dan
authors.forename: Mu-ming
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Poo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009038:Motion; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011601:Psychophysics; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D005456:Fluorescent Dyes