Researchers have discovered how two brain areas, neocortex and thalamus, work together to detect discrepancies between what animals expect from their environment and actual events.
Sainsbury Wellcome CentreAug 28 2024 These prediction errors are implemented by selective boosting of unexpected sensory information. These findings enhance our understanding of predictive processing in the brain and could offer insights into how brain circuits are altered in autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia spectrum disorders .
Our brains constantly predict what to expect in the world around us and the consequences of our actions. When these predictions turn out wrong, this causes strong activation of different brain areas, and such prediction error signals are important for helping us learn from our mistakes and update our predictions. But despite their importance, surprisingly little is known about the neural circuit mechanisms responsible for their implementation in the brain.
To understand how the brain generates this amplification of the unexpected sensory input in the visual cortex, the team used a technique called optogenetics to inactivate or activate different groups of neurons.
And indeed, Dr Furutachi's work revealed that VIP neurons and pulvinar act synergistically together. VIP neurons act like a switch board: when they are off, the pulvinar suppresses activity in the neocortex, but when VIP neurons are on, the pulvinar can strongly and selectively boost sensory responses in the neocortex. The cooperative interaction of these two pathways thus mediates the sensory prediction error signals in visual cortex.
Autism Cortex Neocortex Neurons Research Schizophrenia Thalamus Virtual Reality
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