Few pairings of electrical micro-stimulation... - supplemental figures
Description
Supplemental figures for "Few pairings of electrical micro-stimulation of the ventral tegmental area and a visual stimulus enhance visual cortical responses", Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2022). Abstract: Previous studies demonstrated that pairing a visual stimulus and electrical micro-stimulation of the ventral tegmental area (VTA-EM) for multiple days is sufficient to induce visual cortical plasticity and changes perception. However, a brief epoch of VTA-EM stimulus pairing within a single day has been shown to result in a behavioral preference for the paired stimulus. Here, we investigated whether a brief single-day session of VTA-EM-stimulus pairings is sufficient to induce changes in visual cortical responses. We examined macaque posterior inferior temporal cortex (PIT) since previous studies demonstrated response changes after VTA-EM stimulus pairing in that area. Multi-unit recordings in PIT were interleaved with VTA-EM-stimulus pairing epochs. During the short VTA-EM-stimulus pairing epochs (60 pairings), one image (fractal) was paired with VTA-EM (STIM) while another, unpaired fractal was presented as control (CON). Two other fractals (dummies) were presented only during the recordings. A difference in response between the STIM and CON fractals was already present after the first VTA-EM-stimulus pairing epoch, reflecting a relative increase of the response to the STIM fractal. However, the response to the STIM fractal did not increase further with more VTA-EM-stimulus pairing epochs. The relative increase in firing rate for the paired fractal was present early in the response, in line with a local/bottom-up origin. These effects were absent when comparing the responses to the dummies pre-and post-VTA-EM. This study shows that pairing a visual image and VTA-EM in a brief single-day session is sufficient to increase the response for the paired image in macaque PIT.