Unit on Neurons, Circuits and Behavior

National Institute Of Mental Health

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

During the past year we have submitted multiple manuscripts, most of them are already published, two are still waiting for their final journal acceptance (preprints published in bioRxiv). Following, is the list of published papers: 1. The study that establishes the complicated surgical procedures for viral transduction in inferior temporal cortex and chronic array implantation: Azadi R, Bohn S, Eldridge MAG, Afraz A. Surgical Procedure for Implantation of Opto-Array in Nonhuman Primates. Curr Protoc. 2023 Mar;3(3):e704. doi: 10.1002/cpz1.704. PMID: 36912623; PMCID: PMC10020889. 2. The study that establishes the visual nature of the effect of neural perturbation in inferior temporal cortex: Azadi R, Bohn S, Lopez E, Lafer-Sousa R, Wang K, Eldridge MAG, Afraz A. Image-dependence of the detectability of optogenetic stimulation in macaque inferotemporal cortex. Curr Biol. 2023 Feb 6;33(3):581-588.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.12.021. Epub 2023 Jan 6. PMID: 36610394; PMCID: PMC9905296. 3. The study that shows dependence of the perceptual events following brain stimulation (in inferior temporal cortex) on the visibility of visual stimuli presented to the eyes: Lafer-Sousa R, Wang K, Azadi R, Lopez E, Bohn S, Afraz A. Behavioral detectability of optogenetic stimulation of inferior temporal cortex varies with the size of concurrently viewed objects. Curr Res Neurobiol. 2022 Dec 6;4:100063. doi: 10.1016/j.crneur.2022.100063. PMID: 36578652; PMCID: PMC9791129. 4. The study that unveils the causal link between neural activity in face selective neurons and free viewing eye movements (preprint): Azadi R, Lopez E, Taubert J, Patterson A, Afraz A. Inactivation of face selective neurons alters eye movements when free viewing faces. bioRxiv Preprint. 2023 Jul 11:2023.06.20.544678. doi: 10.1101/2023.06.20.544678. PMID: 37502993; PMCID: PMC10370202. 5. Perceptography; photographing the perceptual effect of brain stimulation with a combination of high throughput optogenetic brain stimulation and machine learning (preprint): Elia Shahbazi, Timothy Ma, Martin Pernu, Walter Scheirer, Arash Afraz. Perceptography: unveiling visual perceptual hallucinations induced by optogenetic stimulation of the inferior temporal cortex. bioRxiv 2022.10.24.513337; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.10.24.513337 In summary, during the last year we made significant progress in establishing quantitative and causal links between neural activity in the inferior temporal cortex (high level visual area associated with object recognition) and different measures of visual perception.