Discovered the nervous mechanism that allows our visual system to retain information obtained in motion for a more stable view of the outside world. It is described in the journal Nature Communications in research conducted by the International School of Advanced Studies (Sissa) of Trieste, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania and the Belgian Catholic University of Louvain.
The researchers analyzed the signals generated by neurons present in different visual areas of the cerebral cortex of mice as a result of visual stimuli from objects moving at different speeds. Thus it emerged that the visual system, including the human one, is able to fix moving images without having to constantly rework them.
"One of the great challenges of all sensory systems is to maintain a stable representation of the external world, despite the constant changes that occur around us. This also applies to the visual system", observes Davide Zoccolan, director of the Visual Neuroscience Laboratory. della Sissa, and among the research coordinators.
Everything we observe moving around us causes very rapid fluctuations in the signals acquired by the retina. "Until now - continues the researcher - it was not clear whether the same type of variations also characterize the deeper structures of the visual cortex, where information is integrated and processed. We think this is not the case, because otherwise we would live in a condition of great instability".
Regardless of the type of visual stimuli "we have in fact observed a greater persistence of the signals acquired in the deeper cortical layers, a sort of 'perceptual constancy' which - concludes Zoccolan - guarantees a certain stability to the information, eliminating the fluctuations observed in the more superficial layers ".
