Latency shortening with enhanced sparseness and responsiveness in V1 during active visual sensing

In natural vision, neuronal responses to visual stimuli occur due to self-initiated eye movements. Here, we compare single-unit activity in the primary visual cortex (V1) of non-human primates to flashed natural scenes (passive vision condition) to when they freely explore the images by self-initiated eye movements (active vision condition). Active vision enhances the number of neurons responding, and the response latencies become shorter and less variable across neurons. The increased responsiveness and shortened latency during active vision were not explained by increased visual contrast. While the neuronal activities in all layers of V1 show enhanced responsiveness and shortened latency, a significant increase in lifetime sparseness during active vision is observed only in the supragranular layer. These findings demonstrate that the neuronal responses become more distinct in active vision than passive vision, interpreted as consequences of top-down predictive mechanisms. ; Federal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF) 01GQ1114 Strategic International Research Cooperative Program (Japan-Germany) of JST, MEXT KAKENHI JP16H01612 JP15H05921 JP16H01637 Joint Lab "Supercomputing and Modeling for the Human Brain", European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation 604102 720270 785907 945539 German Research Foundation (DFG) 491111487 Naito Foundation Subsidy for Female Researchers after Maternity Leave Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT) Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) 25870405 16K01962 17J40112 Takeda Science Foundation (TSF) Osaka University ICN09_015 ; Versión publicada - versión final del editor