Matteo Carandini

Last updated
Matteo Carandini
Born1967
Rome, Italy
Nationality Italian, American
Awards
  • McKnight Scholar 2005,
  • GlaxoSmithKline
  • Fight for Sight Chair 2007,
  • European Research Council Advanced Investigator 2009,
  • Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator 2011
Scientific career
Fields Neuroscience (Visual Neuroscience, Computational Neuroscience, Systems Neuroscience)
Institutions University College London (professor)

Matteo Carandini (born 1967) is a neuroscientist who studies the visual system. He is currently a professor at University College London, where he co-directs the Cortical Processing Laboratory with Kenneth D Harris.

Contents

He studies the visual cortex at the level of individual neurons and populations of neurons, their intercommunication within the visual cortex, with a particular interest in the functions of the eye, thalamus, and the early visual areas of the cerebral cortex. Carandini conducts his research with the goal of contributing to the knowledge of how the brain processes visual information in the human brain and he works primarily with mice.

His grandfather was ambassador Nicolo Carandini, and his uncle is archaeologist Andrea Carandini.

Achievements

In the 1990s, working with David Heeger and J. Anthony Movshon he refined and provided evidence for Heeger's normalization model of V1 responses. [1] [2]

Together with David Ferster he characterized the relationship between synaptic excitation, synaptic inhibition, membrane potential, and firing rate in visual cortex [3] [4] and discovered that prolonged visual stimulation causes a tonic hyperpolarization in V1 neurons. [5] Further work characterized fast adaptive mechanisms in the responses of the early visual system, [6] [7] compared cortical responses to the properties of natural images [8] and tested the resulting models' responses to complex natural stimuli. [9]

More recent work concerns the way that non-visual information affects activity in the classical visual system, including the discovery that neurons in primary visual cortex encode bodily movements [10] and even information about an animal's location in space, [11] [12] a property previously thought to be restricted to higher-order brain systems such as place cells. Carandini has contributed to the development of Neuropixels probes, [13] [14] [15] and is a founding member of the International Brain Laboratory, [16] which uses this technology to study how brain activity subserves sensory discrimination. He is an advocate of Open access publishing in scientific research. [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual cortex</span> Region of the brain that processes visual information

The visual cortex of the brain is the area of the cerebral cortex that processes visual information. It is located in the occipital lobe. Sensory input originating from the eyes travels through the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus and then reaches the visual cortex. The area of the visual cortex that receives the sensory input from the lateral geniculate nucleus is the primary visual cortex, also known as visual area 1 (V1), Brodmann area 17, or the striate cortex. The extrastriate areas consist of visual areas 2, 3, 4, and 5.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lateral geniculate nucleus</span> Component of the visual system in the brains thalamus

In neuroanatomy, the lateral geniculate nucleus is a structure in the thalamus and a key component of the mammalian visual pathway. It is a small, ovoid, ventral projection of the thalamus where the thalamus connects with the optic nerve. There are two LGNs, one on the left and another on the right side of the thalamus. In humans, both LGNs have six layers of neurons alternating with optic fibers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulvinar nuclei</span>

The pulvinar nuclei or nuclei of the pulvinar are the nuclei located in the thalamus. As a group they make up the collection called the pulvinar of the thalamus, usually just called the pulvinar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motion perception</span>

Motion perception is the process of inferring the speed and direction of elements in a scene based on visual, vestibular and proprioceptive inputs. Although this process appears straightforward to most observers, it has proven to be a difficult problem from a computational perspective, and difficult to explain in terms of neural processing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retinotopy</span> Mapping of visual input from the retina to neurons

Retinotopy is the mapping of visual input from the retina to neurons, particularly those neurons within the visual stream. For clarity, 'retinotopy' can be replaced with 'retinal mapping', and 'retinotopic' with 'retinally mapped'.

David J. Heeger is an American neuroscientist, psychologist, computer scientist, data scientist, and entrepreneur. He is a professor at New York University, Chief Scientific Officer of Statespace Labs, and Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Epistemic AI.

The normalization model is an influential model of responses of neurons in primary visual cortex. David Heeger developed the model in the early 1990s, and later refined it together with Matteo Carandini and J. Anthony Movshon. The model involves a divisive stage. In the numerator is the output of the classical receptive field. In the denominator, a constant plus a measure of local stimulus contrast. Although the normalization model was initially developed to explain responses in the primary visual cortex, normalization is now thought to operate throughout the visual system, and in many other sensory modalities and brain regions, including the representation of odors in the olfactory bulb, the modulatory effects of visual attention, the encoding of value, and the integration of multisensory information. It has also been observed at subthreshold potentials in the hippocampus. Its presence in such a diversity of neural systems in multiple species, from invertebrates to mammals, suggests that normalization serves as a canonical neural computation. Divisive normalization reduces the redundancy in natural stimulus statistics and is sometimes viewed as an implementation of the efficient coding principle. Formally, divisive normalization is an information-maximizing code for stimuli following a multivariate Pareto distribution.

Complex cells can be found in the primary visual cortex (V1), the secondary visual cortex (V2), and Brodmann area 19 (V3).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Synaptic gating</span>

Synaptic gating is the ability of neural circuits to gate inputs by either suppressing or facilitating specific synaptic activity. Selective inhibition of certain synapses has been studied thoroughly, and recent studies have supported the existence of permissively gated synaptic transmission. In general, synaptic gating involves a mechanism of central control over neuronal output. It includes a sort of gatekeeper neuron, which has the ability to influence transmission of information to selected targets independently of the parts of the synapse upon which it exerts its action.

Recurrent thalamo-cortical resonance is an observed phenomenon of oscillatory neural activity between the thalamus and various cortical regions of the brain. It is proposed by Rodolfo Llinas and others as a theory for the integration of sensory information into the whole of perception in the brain. Thalamocortical oscillation is proposed to be a mechanism of synchronization between different cortical regions of the brain, a process known as temporal binding. This is possible through the existence of thalamocortical networks, groupings of thalamic and cortical cells that exhibit oscillatory properties.

Low-threshold spikes (LTS) refer to membrane depolarizations by the T-type calcium channel. LTS occur at low, negative, membrane depolarizations. They often follow a membrane hyperpolarization, which can be the result of decreased excitability or increased inhibition. LTS result in the neuron reaching the threshold for an action potential. LTS is a large depolarization due to an increase in Ca2+ conductance, so LTS is mediated by calcium (Ca2+) conductance. The spike is typically crowned by a burst of two to seven action potentials, which is known as a low-threshold burst. LTS are voltage dependent and are inactivated if the cell's resting membrane potential is more depolarized than −60mV. LTS are deinactivated, or recover from inactivation, if the cell is hyperpolarized and can be activated by depolarizing inputs, such as excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSP). LTS were discovered by Rodolfo Llinás and coworkers in the 1980s.

Voltage-sensitive dyes, also known as potentiometric dyes, are dyes which change their spectral properties in response to voltage changes. They are able to provide linear measurements of firing activity of single neurons, large neuronal populations or activity of myocytes. Many physiological processes are accompanied by changes in cell membrane potential which can be detected with voltage sensitive dyes. Measurements may indicate the site of action potential origin, and measurements of action potential velocity and direction may be obtained.

Globs are millimeter-sized color modules found beyond the visual area V2 in the brain's color processing ventral pathway. They are scattered throughout the posterior inferior temporal cortex in an area called the V4 complex. They are clustered by color preference, and organized as color columns. They are the first part of the brain in which color is processed in terms of the full range of hues found in color space.

Joseph Anthony Movshon is an American neuroscientist. He has made contributions to the understanding of the brain mechanisms that represent the form and motion of objects, and the way these mechanisms contribute to perceptual judgments and visually guided movement. He is a founding co-editor of the Annual Review of Vision Science.

Surround suppression is where the relative firing rate of a neuron may under certain conditions decrease when a particular stimulus is enlarged. It has been observed in electrophysiology studies of the brain and has been noted in many sensory neurons, most notably in the early visual system. Surround suppression is defined as a reduction in the activity of a neuron in response to a stimulus outside its classical receptive field.

Kenneth D. Harris is a neuroscientist at University College London. He is most known for his contributions to the understanding of the neural code used by vast populations of neurons. Among his discoveries is the finding that populations in sensory areas of the brain also code for body movements. Harris has contributed to the development of silicon probes and most recently of Neuropixels probes. With these probes, he and his team discovered that engagement in a task activates neurons throughout the brain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Busse</span> German neuroscientist

Laura Busse is a German neuroscientist and professor of Systemic Neuroscience within the Division of Neurobiology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Busse's lab studies context-dependent visual processing in mouse models by performing large scale in vivo electrophysiological recordings in the thalamic and cortical circuits of awake and behaving mice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carsen Stringer</span> American computational neuroscientist

Carsen Stringer is an American computational neuroscientist and Group Leader at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Research Campus. Stringer uses machine learning and deep neural networks to visualize large scale neural recordings and then probe the neural computations that give rise to visual processing in mice. Stringer has also developed several novel software packages that enable cell segmentation and robust analyses of neural recordings and mouse behavior.

Neuropixels probes are electrodes developed in 2017 to record the activity of hundreds of neurons in the brain. The probes are based on CMOS technology and have 1,000 recording sites arranged in two rows on a thin, 1-cm long shank.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicole C. Rust</span> American neuroscientist

Nicole C. Rust is an American neuroscientist, psychologist, and an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She studies visual perception and visual recognition memory. She is recognized for significant advancements in experimental psychology and neuroscience.

References

  1. ↑ Carandini, M; Heeger, DJ (1994). "Summation and division by neurons in primate visual cortex". Science. 264 (5163): 1333–6. Bibcode:1994Sci...264.1333C. doi:10.1126/science.8191289. PMID   8191289.
  2. ↑ Carandini, M; Heeger, DJ; Movshon, JA (1997). "Linearity and normalization in simple cells of the macaque primary visual cortex". Journal of Neuroscience. 17 (21): 8621–44. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.17-21-08621.1997. PMC   6573724 . PMID   9334433.
  3. ↑ Anderson, JS; Carandini, M; Ferster, D (2000). "Orientation tuning of input conductance, excitation, and inhibition in cat primary visual cortex". Journal of Neurophysiology. 84 (2): 909–26. doi: 10.1152/jn.2000.84.2.909 . PMID   10938316. S2CID   6604234.
  4. ↑ Carandini, M; Ferster, D (2000). "Membrane potential and firing rate in cat primary visual cortex". Journal of Neuroscience. 20 (1): 470–84. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.20-01-00470.2000. PMC   6774139 . PMID   10627623.
  5. ↑ Carandini, M; Ferster, D (1997). "A tonic hyperpolarization underlying contrast adaptation in cat visual cortex". Science. 276 (5314): 949–52. doi:10.1126/science.276.5314.949. PMID   9139658.
  6. ↑ Bonin, V.; Mante, V.; Carandini, M. (2005). "The Suppressive Field of Neurons in Lateral Geniculate Nucleus". Journal of Neuroscience. 25 (47): 10844–56. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3562-05.2005. PMC   6725877 . PMID   16306397.
  7. ↑ Carandini, M.; Demb, J. B.; Mante, V.; Tolhurst, D. J.; Dan, Y.; Olshausen, B. A.; Gallant, J. L.; Rust, N. C. (2005). "Do We Know What the Early Visual System Does?". Journal of Neuroscience. 25 (46): 10577–10597. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3726-05.2005. PMC   6725861 . PMID   16291931.
  8. ↑ Mante, V.; Frazor, R. A.; Bonin, V.; Geisler, W. S.; Carandini, M. (2005). "Independence of luminance and contrast in natural scenes and in the early visual system". Nature Neuroscience. 8 (12): 1690–7. doi:10.1038/nn1556. PMID   16286933. S2CID   9463723.
  9. ↑ Mante, V.; Bonin, V.; Carandini, M. (2008). "Functional Mechanisms Shaping Lateral Geniculate Responses to Artificial and Natural Stimuli". Neuron. 58 (4): 625–38. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2008.03.011 . PMID   18498742. S2CID   18788642.
  10. ↑ Cepelewicz, Jordana. "'Noise' in the Brain Encodes Surprisingly Important Signals". Quanta Magazine. Retrieved 2020-08-27.
  11. ↑ Saleem, AB; Diamanti, EM; Fournier, J; Harris, KD; Carandini, M (October 2018). "Coherent encoding of subjective spatial position in visual cortex and hippocampus". Nature. 562 (7725): 124–127. Bibcode:2018Natur.562..124S. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0516-1. PMC   6309439 . PMID   30202092.
  12. ↑ "Researchers discover the way we see an image depends on 'where we are'". medicalxpress.com. Retrieved 2020-08-27.
  13. ↑ "New Silicon Probes Record Activity of Hundreds of Neurons Simultaneously". HHMI.org. HHMI.
  14. ↑ "Neuropixels probes promise new era of brain research". The Engineer. 2017-11-13. Retrieved 2020-08-27.
  15. ↑ "How to make sense of the brain's billions of neurons | Wellcome". wellcome.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-08-27.
  16. ↑ "Ambitious neuroscience project to probe how the brain makes decisions". the Guardian. 2017-09-19. Retrieved 2020-08-27.
  17. ↑ "Coronavirus may be encouraging publishers to pursue open access". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved 2020-08-27.
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