Song, C;
Sandberg, K;
Andersen, LM;
Blicher, JU;
Rees, G;
(2017)
Human occipital and parietal GABA selectively influence visual perception of orientation and size.
Journal of Neuroscience
, 37
(37)
pp. 8929-8937.
10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3945-16.2017.
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Abstract
Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in human brain. GABA level varies substantially across individuals and this variability is associated with inter-individual differences in visual perception. However, it remains unclear whether the association between GABA level and visual perception reflects a general influence of visual inhibition, or whether GABA level of different cortical regions selectively influences perception of different visual features. To address this, we studied how GABA level in parietal and occipital cortices related to inter-individual differences in size, orientation, and brightness perception, in a group of healthy young male participants. We used visual contextual illusion as a perceptual assay, since it dissociates perceptual content from stimulus content and its magnitude reflects the effect of visual inhibition. Across individuals, we observed selective correlations between GABA level and the magnitude of contextual illusion. Specifically, parietal GABA level correlated with size illusion magnitude but not with orientation or brightness illusion magnitude; in contrast, occipital GABA level correlated with orientation illusion magnitude but not with size or brightness illusion magnitude. Our findings reveal a region- and feature-dependent influence of GABA level on human visual perception. Parietal and occipital cortices contain, respectively, topographic maps of size and orientation preference in which neural responses to sizes or orientations are modualted by intra-regional lateral connections. We propose that these lateral connections may underlie the selective influence of GABA level on visual feature perception.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTGamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in human visual system, varies substantially across individuals and this variability is linked to inter-individual differences in many aspects of visual perception. The widespread influence of GABA raises the question of whether inter-individual variability in GABA reflects an overall variability in visual inhibition and has a general influence on visual perception, or whether GABA level of different cortical regions has selective influence on perception of different visual features. Here we report a region- and feature-dependent influence of GABA level on human visual perception. Our findings suggest that GABA level of a cortical region selectively influences perception of visual features that are topographically mapped in this region through intra-regional lateral connections.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Human occipital and parietal GABA selectively influence visual perception of orientation and size |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3945-16.2017 |
| Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3945-16.2017 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2017 Song et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed. |
| 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 Life Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1571618 |
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