Neuronal mechanism for signaling the direction of self-motion

摘要

Movement of an observer through the environment generates motion on the retina. This optic flow contains information about the direction of self-motion. To accurately signal the direction of self- motion, however, the optic flow has to carry some depth information: there has to be differential motion of elements at different depths. One depth cue that is available to an organism with frontal eyes is binocular disparity. Cells in the dorsal subdivision of the medial superior temporal area (area MSTd) have been proposed to play a role in the analysis of optic flow. We have examined the disparity sensitivity of neurons from MSTd in awake behaving monkeys in an attempt to understand the possible contribution of disparity to the computation of the direction of self-motion. Cells with a response to fronto-parallel motion were examined. We propose that the reversal of disparity selectivity with a reversal in direction selectivity indicates one way in which these neurons could signal the direction of self-motion of the organism in its environment.