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Perceptual filling-in at the scotoma following a monocular retinal lesion in the monkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2009

Ikuya Murakami ,
Hidehiko Komatsu  and
Masaharu Kinoshita
Ikuya Murakami
Affiliation:
Neuroscience Section, Electrotechnical Laboratory, 1-1-4 Umezono, Tsukubashi, Ibaraki 305, Japan
Hidehiko Komatsu
Affiliation:
Neuroscience Section, Electrotechnical Laboratory, 1-1-4 Umezono, Tsukubashi, Ibaraki 305, Japan
Masaharu Kinoshita
Affiliation:
Neuroscience Section, Electrotechnical Laboratory, 1-1-4 Umezono, Tsukubashi, Ibaraki 305, Japan
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Abstract

Although no visual inputs arise from the blind spot, the same visual attribute there as in the visual field surrounding the blind spot is perceived. Because of this remarkable “perceptual filling-in,” a hole corresponding to the blind spot is not perceived, even when one eye is closed. Does the same phenomenon occur in the case of a scotoma in which visual inputs are lost postnatally due to a retinal lesion? We report that it did: in the macaque monkey, behavioral evidence for filling-in at a scotoma produced by a laser-induced monocular retinal lesion was obtained. The visual receptive fields of neurons in the primary visual cortex (VI) in and around the representation of the visual field corresponding to the scotoma were also mapped, and no clear difference between the retinotopic organization of this part in VI and that found in the normal visual field was found. Also, perceptual filling-in was found to occur only two days after the lesion. These findings suggest that the normal visual system possesses a mechanism that yields filling-in when some part of the retina is damaged, and that such a mechanism requires no topographical reorganization in VI.

Keywords

Macaque monkeyScotomaPerceptual filling-inRetinal lesionsPrimary visual cortex
Type
Research Articles
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , January 1997 , pp. 89 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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