Takeuchi Ryosuke F, Osakada Fumitaka
Laboratory of Cellular Pharmacology, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nagoya University.
Laboratory of Neural Information Processing, Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University.
Nihon Yakurigaku Zasshi. 2020;155(2):99-106. doi: 10.1254/fpj.19132.
Animals can make appropriate decisions based on sensory information about the environment. Vision is one of the most critical ability for survival in dynamic situations in nature, particularly for mammalian species, such as primates, carnivores, and rodents. Although there is a huge computational cost involved in processing visual information, the brain can perform this task very rapidly using well-organized parallel and hierarchical neural circuits, enabling animals to rapidly sense the environment and, in turn, perform adaptive actions. Physiological, psychophysical, and clinical studies over hundreds of years have delineated the neural circuit mechanisms of the visual system. Artificial intelligence and robotics have also started making progress in this area. However, due to technical limitations, there are still many open questions that elude explanation in understanding the neural mechanism of visuomotor integration. Herein, we initially describe the anatomical structures of occipital cortices related to vision and then provide an overview of the physiological and clinical studies of the dorsal visual pathway related to spatial perception and prediction in non-human primate species. Finally, we introduce recent approaches in which rodents have been used as model species to elucidate the neural circuit mechanism of visually-guided behavior. Uncovering neural implementation of the association between visual-spatial perception and visuomotor function could provide key insights into the engineering of highly active robots and could also contribute to the development of novel therapeutic strategies addressing visual impairment and psychiatric/neurological disorders.
动物能够根据有关环境的感官信息做出恰当的决策。视觉是在自然界动态环境中生存的最关键能力之一，对于灵长类、食肉动物和啮齿动物等哺乳动物物种尤为重要。尽管处理视觉信息涉及巨大的计算成本，但大脑可以利用组织良好的并行和分层神经回路非常迅速地完成这项任务，使动物能够快速感知环境，进而采取适应性行动。数百年来的生理学、心理物理学和临床研究已经阐明了视觉系统的神经回路机制。人工智能和机器人技术在这一领域也已开始取得进展。然而，由于技术限制，在理解视觉运动整合的神经机制方面仍有许多悬而未决的问题难以解释。在此，我们首先描述与视觉相关的枕叶皮质的解剖结构，然后概述与非人类灵长类动物物种的空间感知和预测相关的背侧视觉通路的生理学和临床研究。最后，我们介绍最近将啮齿动物用作模型物种以阐明视觉引导行为的神经回路机制的方法。揭示视觉空间感知与视觉运动功能之间关联的神经实现方式，可为高活性机器人的工程设计提供关键见解，也有助于开发针对视觉障碍以及精神/神经疾病的新型治疗策略。
