How a neuron perceives visual motion during self-motion

Abstract

The visual system conducts parallel and hierarchical signal processing for each aspect of visual information. The different signals are then integrated at appropriate stages to generate unified visual percepts. This ability is a remarkable accomplishment considering that the retinal image is constantly moved by self-motion including movements of body, head, and eyes, so that it contains information about movement from external objects and the observer himself. Our eyes alternate fixation and saccade (rapid and jerky eye movement used to scan the world around us). Therefore, the visual system needs to discriminate this information for an individual to accurately interpret his environment and to prevent the visual images from blurring and bouncing during saccades. In this review, we discuss how the visual system solves these problems at the single neuron level. Results indicate that our visual motion perception is built on the integration of different aspects of visual signals, multisensory signals, and sensory-motor signals along a hierarchy of visual motion information processing.