title: Cortical Correlates of Low-Level Perception: From Neural Circuits to Percepts.
abstract: Low-level perception results from neural-based computations, which build a multimodal skeleton of unconscious or self-generated inferences on our environment. This review identifies bottleneck issues concerning the role of early primary sensory cortical areas, mostly in rodent and higher mammals (cats and non-human primates), where perception substrates can be searched at multiple scales of neural integration. We discuss the limitation of purely bottom-up approaches for providing realistic models of early sensory processing and the need for identification of fast adaptive processes, operating within the time of a percept. Future progresses will depend on the careful use of comparative neuroscience (guiding the choices of experimental models and species adapted to the questions under study), on the definition of agreed-upon benchmarks for sensory stimulation, on the simultaneous acquisition of neural data at multiple spatio-temporal scales, and on the in vivo identification of key generic integration and plasticity algorithms validated experimentally and in simulations.
authors.affiliation: Unité Neuroscience Information et Complexité (UNIC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, FRE 3693, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France. Electronic address: fregnac@unic.cnrs-gif.fr.
authors.forename: Yves
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Frégnac
authors.affiliation: Unité Neuroscience Information et Complexité (UNIC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, FRE 3693, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
authors.forename: Brice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bathellier
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D012677:Sensation / Q000502:physiology