july, 2025
Event Details
Prof. Dr. Sergio Neuenschwander from the Brain Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte Natal, Brazil will talk about „Entrainment of responses in the LGN reveals principles of perceptual integration“ during the MBExC Lecture on July 21st, 2025 at 4:00 pm at the small lecture hall (behind the library) at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Hermann-Rein-Str. 3.
Abstract
Gamma oscillations in the retina have been proposed as a mechanism for visual binding, with early studies showing transmission of fast signals from the retina to the LGN and cortex. However, recent findings in cats suggest that these oscillations may be induced by anesthesia and are absent in the awake state. Consistent with this, recordings from the LGN in conscious humans show no evidence of retinal gamma activity. In this study, we re-examined the phenomenon in anesthetized cats by presenting flickering stimuli and recording LGN responses. We found that neurons could follow high-frequency flicker (up to 60 Hz) when the stimulus was spatially continuous, but entrainment was disrupted by spatial discontinuities such as annular gaps. Using both CRT and LED setups, we showed that asynchronous flicker in the periphery could abolish central entrainment, suggesting a retinal mechanism for long-range synchronization. Future work will explore whether this mechanism depends on eye-specific input and varies by cell type or polarity.
Host: Prof. Dr. Fred Wolf, Göttingen Campus Institute for Dynamics of Biological Networks, University of Göttingen & MPI-DS
Poster of the talk: 
