Spiking Neurons Integrating Visual Stimuli Orientation and Direction Selectivity in a Robotic Context

Abstract

Visual motion detection is essential for the survival of many species. The phenomenon includes several spatial properties, not fully understood at the level of a neural circuit. This paper proposes a computational model of a visual motion detector that integrates direction and orientation selectivity features. A recent experiment in the Drosophila model highlights that stimulus orientation influences the neural response of direction cells. However, this interaction and the significance at the behavioral level are currently unknown. As such, another objective of this article is to study the effect of merging these two visual processes when contextualized in a neuro-robotic model and an operant conditioning procedure. In this work, the learning task was solved using an artificial spiking neural network, acting as the brain controller for virtual and physical robots, showing a behavior modulation from the integration of both visual processes.

Discrimination of Motion Direction in a Robot Using a Phenomenological Model of Synaptic Plasticity

“…Similarly, the topological structure of our expanded network was constructed in the absence of any explicit coding for direction selectivity. Hence, our work is in-line with recent experimental and computational studies suggesting that visual experience may serve a permissive role to complement structural processes that are fully characterized at the onset of visual experience [6, 48, 51, 52]. Hence, the organization of the initial architecture may lay the foundation for the map of direction preference, as observed in the visual cortex [49].…”

An Artificial Visual System for Three Dimensional Motion Direction Detection

“…Moreover, the amacrine cells were found to have a great relationship with the direction selectivity and the research entered a new stage [12][13][14][15][16]. A computational model of a visual motion detector that integrates direction and orientation selectivity features was found [17]. Which part of the visual system achieves direction selectivity and how it is achieved is being discovered [18][19][20][21].…”