A Functional Architecture for Motion Pattern Processing in MSTd

Psychophysical studies suggest the existence of specialized detectors for component motion patterns (radial, circular, and spiral), that are consistent with the visual motion properties of cells in the dorsal medial superior temporal area (MSTd) of nonhuman primates. Here we use a biologically constrained model of visual motion processing in MSTd, in conjunction with psychophysical performance on two motion pattern tasks, to elucidate the computational mechanisms associated with the processing of widefield motion patterns encountered during self-motion. In both tasks discrimination thresholds varied significantly with the type of motion pattern presented, suggesting perceptual correlates to the preferred motion bias reported in MSTd. Through the model we demonstrate that while independently responding motion pattern units are capable of encoding information relevant to the visual motion tasks, equivalent psychophysical performance can only be achieved using interconnected neural populations that systematically inhibit non-responsive units. These results suggest the cyclic trends in psychophysical performance may be mediated, in part, by recurrent connections within motion pattern responsive areas whose structure is a function of the similarity in preferred motion patterns and receptive field locations between units.