Abstract
Visual perception emerges as the result of neural systems actively organizing intrinsically noisy visual signals. It is commonly assumed that selection processes of competing neurons underlie this emergence of perceptual organization. While the neural competition, realized by such a “mutual inhibition” circuit has been examined in many theoretical studies, its dynamic properties have not been investigated in real neurons. We have developed a “hybrid” system where two real-life pyramidal neurons in a mouse brain slice interact through a computer simulated mutual inhibition circuit. We found that simultaneous activation of the mutually inhibiting pyramidal neurons leads to bi-stable activity. We investigated the effects of noise and the effect of changes in the activation strength on the dynamics. We observed that the circuit exhibits dynamics strikingly similar to the known properties of bi-stable visual perception.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
