Neural Dynamics during Binocular Rivalry: Indications from Human Lateral Geniculate Nucleus

Abstract

When two sufficiently different stimuli are presented to each eye, perception alternates between them. This binocular rivalry is conceived as a competition for representation in the single stream of visual consciousness. The magnocellular (M) and parvocellular (P) pathways, originating in the retina, encode disparate information, but their potentially different contributions to binocular rivalry have not been determined. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the human lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), where the M and P neurons are segregated into layers receiving input from a single eye. We had three participants (one male, two females) and used achromatic stimuli to avoid contributions from color opponent neurons that may have confounded previous studies. We observed activity in the eye-specific regions of LGN correlated with perception, with similar magnitudes during rivalry or physical stimuli alternations, also similar in the M and P regions. These results suggest that LGN activity reflects our perceptions during binocular rivalry and is not simply an artifact of color opponency. Further, perception appears to be a global phenomenon in the LGN, not just limited to a single information channel.Significance StatementMultiple channels of visual information emerge from the retina, but their role in our visual perception remains unclear. Binocular rivalry is an interesting phenomenon in that the separate stimuli presented to each eye remain stable, yet our conscious perception alternates between them. We tested whether both the magnocellular and parvocellular visual streams contribute to binocular rivalry. We measured their activations during binocular rivalry in the human lateral geniculate nucleus, where these two streams are physically disjoint. We found that unperceived information in both streams was suppressed during binocular rivalry, suggesting that both the magnocellular and parvocellular streams have a role in our conscious perception.

Augment-Me: An Approach for Enhancing Pilot’s Helmet-Mounted Display Visualization for Tactical Combat Effectiveness and Survivability

“…This layout triggers competition between both eyes affecting visual search. On the other hand, an alike condition caused by the neural adaptation of switches between the perceptual state also characterizes binocular rivalry by facilitating visibility near the point of fixation rather than the fixation itself [27,28]. A consideration for monocular augmented reality is that there is competitive dominance between stimuli luminescence and moving or stationary stimuli.…”