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Main Authors: Granley, Jacob, Pogoncheff, Galen, Rodil, Alfonso, Soo, Leili, Turkstra, Lily Marie, Nadolskis, Lucas Gil, Saez, Arantxa Alfaro, Sanchez, Cristina Soto, Jover, Eduardo Fernandez, Beyeler, Michael
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.12990
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author Granley, Jacob
Pogoncheff, Galen
Rodil, Alfonso
Soo, Leili
Turkstra, Lily Marie
Nadolskis, Lucas Gil
Saez, Arantxa Alfaro
Sanchez, Cristina Soto
Jover, Eduardo Fernandez
Beyeler, Michael
author_facet Granley, Jacob
Pogoncheff, Galen
Rodil, Alfonso
Soo, Leili
Turkstra, Lily Marie
Nadolskis, Lucas Gil
Saez, Arantxa Alfaro
Sanchez, Cristina Soto
Jover, Eduardo Fernandez
Beyeler, Michael
contents Neural activity in the visual cortex of blind humans persists in the absence of visual stimuli. However, little is known about the preservation of visual representation capacity in these cortical regions, which could have significant implications for neural interfaces such as visual prostheses. In this work, we present a series of analyses on the shared representations between evoked neural activity in the primary visual cortex (V1) of a blind human with an intracortical visual prosthesis, and latent visual representations computed in deep neural networks (DNNs). In the absence of natural visual input, we examine two alternative forms of inducing neural activity: electrical stimulation and mental imagery. We first quantitatively demonstrate that latent DNN activations are aligned with neural activity measured in blind V1. On average, DNNs with higher ImageNet accuracy or higher sighted primate neural predictivity are more predictive of blind V1 activity. We further probe blind V1 alignment in ResNet-50 and propose a proof-of-concept approach towards interpretability of blind V1 neurons. The results of these studies suggest the presence of some form of natural visual processing in blind V1 during electrically evoked visual perception and present unique directions in mechanistically understanding and interfacing with blind V1.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_12990
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Beyond Sight: Probing Alignment Between Image Models and Blind V1
Granley, Jacob
Pogoncheff, Galen
Rodil, Alfonso
Soo, Leili
Turkstra, Lily Marie
Nadolskis, Lucas Gil
Saez, Arantxa Alfaro
Sanchez, Cristina Soto
Jover, Eduardo Fernandez
Beyeler, Michael
Neurons and Cognition
Neural activity in the visual cortex of blind humans persists in the absence of visual stimuli. However, little is known about the preservation of visual representation capacity in these cortical regions, which could have significant implications for neural interfaces such as visual prostheses. In this work, we present a series of analyses on the shared representations between evoked neural activity in the primary visual cortex (V1) of a blind human with an intracortical visual prosthesis, and latent visual representations computed in deep neural networks (DNNs). In the absence of natural visual input, we examine two alternative forms of inducing neural activity: electrical stimulation and mental imagery. We first quantitatively demonstrate that latent DNN activations are aligned with neural activity measured in blind V1. On average, DNNs with higher ImageNet accuracy or higher sighted primate neural predictivity are more predictive of blind V1 activity. We further probe blind V1 alignment in ResNet-50 and propose a proof-of-concept approach towards interpretability of blind V1 neurons. The results of these studies suggest the presence of some form of natural visual processing in blind V1 during electrically evoked visual perception and present unique directions in mechanistically understanding and interfacing with blind V1.
title Beyond Sight: Probing Alignment Between Image Models and Blind V1
topic Neurons and Cognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.12990