Researchers settle 60-year debate on the fundamental mechanisms of visual perception

A scientific dispute spanning six decades about fundamental mechanisms of visual perception in mammals has now been settled. Researchers at TUM have succeeded in observing the visual information flow from neuron to neuron. Their findings confirm the validity of the 1981 Nobel Prize-winning model by David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel, which had remained controversial in some aspects.

The research team, led by Prof. Arthur Konnerth, Dr. Yang Chen, and PhD student Marinus Kloos at the Institute of Neuroscience at the TUM School of Medicine and Health and the Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (SyNergy), developed a high-resolution imaging approach to measure synaptic activity in the intact brain. Their findings directly confirm core predictions of the Hubel and Wiesel model. The new research results were published in the prestigious journal Science.

Our results highlight how remarkably accurate and forward-looking Hubel and Wiesel's insights were. Modern neuroscience – and even artificial neural networks – continue to build on their principles. Learning from biological systems remains a powerful driver of technological innovation."

When we see, signals travel from the eye first to the thalamus, a relay station deep in the brain, and from there to the visual cortex at the back of the head. In the first area of this visual cortex, known as the primary visual cortex, simple image features like edges, contrast, and orientation are processed. The TUM researchers specifically examined this segment – the connection from the thalamus to this initial visual area of the cortex – in mice.