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Science 17 March 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5767, pp. 1606 - 1609
DOI: 10.1126/science.1123513
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Reports

Reward Timing in the Primary Visual Cortex

Marshall G. Shuler and Mark F. Bear*

We discovered that when adult rats experience an association between visual stimuli and subsequent rewards, the responses of a substantial fraction of neurons in the primary visual cortex evolve from those that relate solely to the physical attributes of the stimuli to those that accurately predict the timing of reward. In addition to revealing a remarkable type of response plasticity in adult V1, these data demonstrate that reward-timing activity—a "higher" brain function—can occur very early in sensory-processing paths. These findings challenge the traditional interpretation of activity in the primary visual cortex.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mbear{at}mit.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)