The team of Neuron Jiayi Zhang/Ying Mao/Liang Chen reveals the important role of the optic cortex in temporal information prediction

The perception and prediction of various signals that occur at different time intervals in the environment are of great significance to the survival and evolution of animals
.
A classic example is that to avoid predators in time, animals must effectively make accurate predictions about different time signals
.

On October 3, 2022, Zhang Jiayi's team from the Institute of Brain Sciences/State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology of Fudan University, in collaboration with Mao Ying and Chen Liang of Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University, published an article on Neuron in Neuron, revealing the important mechanism of temporal prediction information of
optic cortex encoding.

The collaborative team first recorded and analyzed the intracranial multichannel electroencephalogenol (SEEG) signals in 28 brain regions of the human brain and found that the EEG in the primary optic cortex showed two characteristics before making the time-information prediction behavior: the alpha band energy rise and the delta band phase synchronization
.

Fig.
1 Temporal information in the primary visual cortex of the human brain predicts related activities

In the mouse experiment, the experimental team further applied a number of experimental techniques such as optogenetics and in vivo membrane clamping recording, and combined with behavioral experiments, found that the time prediction behavior of mice was similar to that of humans, and was also highly correlated with the cerebral energy of the primary optic cortex, in addition to finding that some optic cortex neurons had excitatory enhancement related to temporal information prediction, and there were significant features
of sequential discharge of optic cortex neurons with enhanced excitability 。 On the basis of these biological experiments, the team proposed a cortical computational model based on bilayer attractors and time cells, which revealed the self-correcting plasticity of
optic cortex neural networks when processing second-level time information.
Through this law of plasticity change, the visual cortex can encode the visual time prediction information, which significantly advances the understanding of
the brain's time prediction mechanism.

Figure 2 Schematic diagram of human and mouse temporal prediction behavior, EEG signals, and temporal cell plasticity

Zhang Jiayi, Chen Liang and Mao Ying are the co-corresponding authors of the paper; Yu Qingpeng, Bi Zedong, Jiang Shize, Yan Biao, Chen Heming, and Wang Yiting were the co-first authors of the paper, and a number of graduate students and technicians participated in the study
.

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