Warrington, Oliver;
(2024)
Probing perceptual predictions using high-resolution fMRI.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Perception is our link to the world, other people, and everything outside us. It is fundamental to our survival and the justification of our beliefs. It is surprising when we first learn that we do not know precisely how perception works and that the same debates are still raging after hundreds of years. Recently, perception as a process of inference has returned as the dominant theory, emphasising the combined role of sensory input and prior knowledge in constructing our best hypothesis about the world around us. In this thesis, I outline a particularly influential version of this hypothesis, Bayesian predictive coding, from the computational goal of perception down to the physical implementation in the brain. I emphasise the potential of high-resolution functional MRI and layer-specific analysis methods to investigate computational theories of perception and detail the development of an fMRI protocol capable of submillimetre measurements in the medial temporal lobe, one of the most challenging regions of the brain to image. I then demonstrate the use of this high-resolution protocol in two studies, providing insights into the role of the hippocampus in perceptual prediction signalling. I find that the hippocampus exploits previously learnt associations to retrieve predicted shapes from memory and send predictions to the deep layers of the parahippocampal cortex. In the second study, I extend previous research to 7T fMRI and corroborate the representation of prediction errors during early learning. In the final study, I zoom out to consider the extension of predictive processes to the level of awareness, finding a dissociation between the location of prediction errors for detection and discrimination. I conclude with a critical discussion of the theoretical framework and highlight key issues determining how useful high-resolution fMRI will be in the future.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Probing perceptual predictions using high-resolution fMRI |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10201337 |
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