PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Talluri, Bharath C.
AU  - Kang, Incheol
AU  - Lazere, Adam
AU  - Quinn, Katrina R.
AU  - Kaliss, Nicholas
AU  - Yates, Jacob L.
AU  - Butts, Daniel A.
AU  - Nienborg, Hendrikje
TI  - Activity in primate visual cortex is minimally driven by spontaneous movements
AID  - 10.1101/2022.09.08.507006
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.09.08.507006
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/09/10/2022.09.08.507006.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/09/10/2022.09.08.507006.full
AB  - Organisms process sensory information in the context of their own moving bodies, an idea referred to as embodiment. This idea is important for developmental neuroscience, and increasingly plays a role in robotics and systems neuroscience. The mechanisms that support such embodiment are unknown, but a manifestation could be the observation in mice of brain-wide neuromodulation, including in the primary visual cortex, driven by task-irrelevant spontaneous body movements. Here we tested this hypothesis in macaque monkeys, a primate model for human vision, by simultaneously recording visual cortex activity and facial and body movements. Activity in the visual cortex (V1, V2, V3/V3A) was associated with the animals’ own movements, but this modulation was largely explained by the impact of the movements on the retinal image. These results suggest that embodiment in primate vision may be realized by input provided by the eyes themselves.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.