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SUMMARY:Dissecting neuronal circuits underlying visual cognition: from mac
 aques to marmosets - Keita Tamura\, Department of Physiology\, Development
  and Neuroscience\,  University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20231123T160000Z
DTEND:20231123T170000Z
UID:TALK208585@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Elena Scarpa
DESCRIPTION:When you see an object\, not only do you perceive its physical
  appearance but also experience a non-physical impression such that distin
 guishes an old friend from strangers. Perirhinal cortex\, the final stage 
 of visual object processing\, is essential for perception and memory of vi
 sual objects as revealed by lesion studies\, but its mechanisms remain unc
 lear. To study the underlying neuronal processing\, we recorded neuronal a
 ctivities in the perirhinal cortex of macaque monkeys and found neurons se
 lectively representing the memories of visual objects. To examine how the 
 perirhinal cortex activity causally influences behaviour\, we optimised op
 togenetic techniques for macaque monkeys\, and used those while the monkey
 s were performing a memory judgement task. Surprisingly\, optogenetic acti
 vation of the perirhinal cortex neurons caused monkeys to judge any presen
 ted object as “seen before” even when the monkeys had not seen that ob
 ject before. This result suggests that perirhinal cortex neurons output a 
 semantic feature of learned objects i.e.\, ‘familiarity’ to be used fo
 r judgements about objects. To determine the output circuits of the perirh
 inal cortex and how those circuits guide perceptual and memory judgements\
 , my group has begun to study common marmosets\, a small primate species h
 ighly suited for optical circuit-interrogation technologies. In the semina
 r\, I will discuss my previous works in macaques and current attempts in m
 armosets.
LOCATION:Hodgkin Huxley Seminar Room\, Physiology builiding\, Downing Site
  CB2 3EG
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