
Highly accurate retinotopic maps of the physiological blind spot in human visual cortex
Author(s) -
Urale Poutasi W. B.,
Puckett Alexander M.,
York Ashley,
Arnold Derek,
Schwarzkopf D. Samuel
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
human brain mapping
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.005
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1097-0193
pISSN - 1065-9471
DOI - 10.1002/hbm.25996
Subject(s) - blind spot , visual cortex , retinotopy , receptive field , extrastriate cortex , neuroscience , visual field , monocular , artificial intelligence , neuroimaging , computer vision , perception , visual perception , computer science , functional magnetic resonance imaging , visual system , psychology
The physiological blind spot is a naturally occurring scotoma corresponding with the optic disc in the retina of each eye. Even during monocular viewing, observers are usually oblivious to the scotoma, in part because the visual system extrapolates information from the surrounding area. Unfortunately, studying this visual field region with neuroimaging has proven difficult, as it occupies only a small part of retinotopic cortex. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and a novel data‐driven method for mapping the retinotopic organization in and around the blind spot representation in V1. Our approach allowed for highly accurate reconstructions of the extent of an observer’s blind spot, and out‐performed conventional model‐based analyses. This method opens exciting opportunities to study the plasticity of receptive fields after visual field loss, and our data add to evidence suggesting that the neural circuitry responsible for impressions of perceptual completion across the physiological blind spot most likely involves regions of extrastriate cortex—beyond V1.