Noninvasive precision modulation of high-level neural population activity via natural vision perturbations

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that noninvasive, natural vision perturbations can precisely modulate high-level neural activity in primates, enabling targeted neural interventions without invasive procedures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach using natural visual feed perturbations to achieve precise, noninvasive control of neural populations in the ventral visual stream.

Findings

Model predictions closely match biological neural modulation.

Subtle visual perturbations can inject specific neural activity patterns.

Noninvasive neural modulation achieved at single-neuron resolution.

Abstract

Precise control of neural activity -- modulating target neurons deep in the brain while leaving nearby neurons unaffected -- is an outstanding challenge in neuroscience, generally approached using invasive techniques. This study investigates the possibility of precisely and noninvasively modulating neural activity in the high-level primate ventral visual stream via perturbations on one's natural visual feed. When tested on macaque inferior temporal (IT) neural populations, we found quantitative agreement between the model-predicted and biologically realized effect: strong modulation concentrated on targeted neural sites. We extended this to demonstrate accurate injection of experimenter-chosen neural population patterns via subtle perturbations applied on the background of typical natural visual feeds. These results highlight that current machine-executable models of the ventral stream can now design noninvasive, visually-delivered, possibly imperceptible neural interventions at the resolution of individual neurons.