Exciting stimuli for mice and how they are encoded by the early visual system (D01 (ehem. 10))

• Subject Area: Cognitive, Systems and Behavioural Neurobiology
• Term: since 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 276693517

Project D1 will study how neural circuits in mice select specific information from rich visual input. To this end, we will generate innovative naturalistic movie stimuli that reflect the animal’s natural environment and contain salient objects (e.g., shapes mimicking prey and predators), which we will validate in behavioural paradigms. In addition, we will investigate the effect of variability of environmental conditions (e.g., daylight vs. twilight) by rendering naturalistic stimuli that systematically vary in their backdrop. We will use the advanced naturalistic stimuli to record retinal responses, which will be used for training digital twin models in D2. In collaboration with D2 and D3, we will then compare the neural object representations to predictions from these “digital twin” models.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1233: Robust Vision - Inference Principles and Neural Mechanisms
• Applicant Institution: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
• Project Heads: Professorin Dr. Laura Busse; Professor Dr. Thomas Euler; Dr. Katrin Franke; Professor Dr. Frank Schaeffel, until 12/2020