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Responses to interocular disparity correlation in the human cerebral cortex
Author(s) -
Ip Ifan Betina,
Minini Loredana,
Dow James,
Parker Andrew J.,
Bridge Holly
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
ophthalmic and physiological optics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.147
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1475-1313
pISSN - 0275-5408
DOI - 10.1111/opo.12121
Subject(s) - correlation , visual cortex , binocular disparity , functional magnetic resonance imaging , neuroscience , depth perception , cortex (anatomy) , perception , dorsum , binocular neurons , occipital lobe , psychology , binocular vision , human brain , cerebral cortex , visual perception , artificial intelligence , computer science , mathematics , anatomy , biology , geometry
Purpose Perceiving binocular depth relies on the ability of our visual system to precisely match corresponding features in the left and right eyes. Yet how the human brain extracts interocular disparity correlation is poorly understood. Methods We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (f MRI ) to characterize brain regions involved in processing interocular disparity correlation. By varying the amount of interocular correlation of a disparity‐defined random‐dot‐stereogram, we concomitantly controlled the perception of binocular depth and measured the percent B lood‐ O xygenation‐ L evel‐ D ependent (% BOLD )‐signal in multiple regions‐of‐interest in the human occipital cortex and along the intra‐parietal sulcus. Results A linear support vector machine classification analysis applied to cortical responses showed patterns of activation that represented different disparity correlation levels within regions‐of‐interest in the visual cortex. These also revealed a positive trend between the difference in disparity correlation and classification accuracy in V 1, V 3 and lateral occipital cortex. Classifier performance was significantly related to behavioural performance in dorsal visual area V 3. Cortical responses to random‐dot‐stereogram stimuli were greater in the right compared to the left hemisphere. Conclusions Our results show that multiple regions in the cerebral cortex are sensitive to changes in interocular disparity correlation, and that dorsal area V 3 may play an important role in the early transformation of binocular disparity to depth perception.