Javier Ortiz-Tudela | Memory-driven predictions: decoding the content of feedback signals in the early visual cortex

When navigating through the world, we are exposed to an overwhelming amount of information. It is our ability to efficiently integrating our memories with incoming information that allow us to make sense our world. Further our understanding on how this integration is implemented in the human brain is the main goal of this project. Human participants will be put inside a 7 Tesla MRI scanner and will be presented with partially occluded images while they perform a memory task. Using functional retinotopy we will isolate brain activity in specific subregions of the visual cortex that respond exclusively to the missing parts. By studying activity patterns in those regions with multivariate analysis techniques, we will be able to quantify the amount of mnemonic and contextual information available across different depths of the early visual cortex. The results of this project will potentially contribute to our understanding on how top-down and bottom-up signals are integrated in the brain.