Zhang Jiayi's team reveals the important role of the optic cortex in the prediction of temporal information

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
.
The team of Jiayi Zhang, from the Institute of Brain Sciences of Fudan University/State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, in collaboration with Mao Ying and Chen Liang of Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University, has recently made important progress in the research of temporal information prediction, revealing an important mechanism of
temporal prediction information encoded by the optic cortex 。 The paper "Visual Cortex Encodes Timing Information in Humans and Mice" was published online in Neuron (https://doi.
org/10.
1016/j.
neuron.
2022.
09.
008)
on October 3, 2022.

The team first recorded and analyzed the intracranial multichannel electroencephalogen (SEEG) signals in 28 brain regions of the human brain and found that before making the time-information prediction behavior, the cerebral electricity of the optic cortex showed two characteristics: the alpha band energy rise and the delta band phase synchronization
。 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 collaborative team proposed a cortical computational model based on bilayer attractors and time cells, which revealed the self-correcting plasticity of
optocortical 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.

This work is the result of close collaboration between the basic and clinical aspects
.
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
.
The work is supported
by the Science and Technology Innovation 2030 - "Brain Science and Brain-like Research" major project, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Shanghai Municipal Major Special Project and the Shanghai Municipal Basic Research Special Zone.

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