Early vestibular processing does not discriminate active from passive self-motion if there is a discrepancy between predicted and actual proprioceptive feedback

摘要

However, if a discrepancy does exist, central vestibular neurons no longer preferentially encode vestibular exafference. Specifically, when simultaneous active and passive motion resulted in activation of the same muscle proprio-ceptors, neurons robustly encoded the total vestibular input (i.e., responses to vestibular reafference and exafference were equally strong), rather than exafference alone. Taken together, our results show that the cancellation of vestibular reafference in early vestibular processing requires an explicit match between expected and actual proprioceptive feedback. We propose that this vital neuronal computation, necessary for both accurate sensory perception and motor control, has important implications for a variety of sensory systems that suppress self-generated signals.