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Eye movements serve to accumulate information from the visual world, contributing to the formation of coherent memory representations that support cognition and behavior. The hippocampus and the oculomotor network are well connected anatomically through an extensive set of polysynaptic pathways. However, the extent to which visual sampling behavior is related to functional responses in the hippocampus during encoding has not been studied directly in human neuroimaging. In the current study, participants engaged in a face processing task while brain responses were recorded with fMRI and eye movements were monitored simultaneously. The number of gaze fixations that a participant made on a given trial was correlated significantly with hippocampal activation such that more fixations were associated with stronger hippocampal activation. Similar results were also found in the fusiform face area, a face-selective perceptual processing region. Notably, the number of fixations was associated with stronger hippocampal activation when the presented faces were novel, but not when the faces were repeated. Increases in fixations during viewing of novel faces also led to larger repetition-related suppression in the hippocampus, indicating that this fixation-hippocampal relationship may reflect the ongoing development of lasting representations. Together, these results provide novel empirical support for the idea that visual exploration and hippocampal binding processes are inherently linked., Significance Statement: The hippocampal and oculomotor networks have each been studied extensively for their roles in the binding of information and gaze function, respectively. Despite the evidence that individuals with amnesia whose damage includes the hippocampus show alterations in their eye movement patterns and recent findings that the two systems are anatomically connected, it has not been demonstrated whether visual exploration is related to hippocampal activity in neurologically intact adults. In this combined fMRI-eye-tracking study, we show how hippocampal responses scale with the number of gaze fixations made during viewing of novel, but not repeated, faces. These findings provide new evidence suggesting that the hippocampus plays an important role in the binding of information, as sampled by gaze fixations, during visual exploration., (Copyright © 2017 the authors 0270-6474/17/370599-11$15.00/0.)

The structural organization of the brain constrains the range of interactions between different regions and shapes ongoing information processing. Therefore, it is expected that large-scale dynamic functional connectivity (FC) patterns, a surrogate measure of coordination between brain regions, will be closely tied to the fiber pathways that form the underlying structural network. Here, we empirically examined the influence of network structure on FC dynamics by comparing resting-state FC (rsFC) obtained using BOLD-fMRI in macaques (Macaca fascicularis) to structural connectivity derived from macaque axonal tract tracing studies. Consistent with predictions from simulation studies, the correspondence between rsFC and structural connectivity increased as the sample duration increased. Regions with reciprocal structural connections showed the most stable rsFC across time. The data suggest that the transient nature of FC is in part dependent on direct underlying structural connections, but also that dynamic coordination can occur via polysynaptic pathways. Temporal stability was found to be dependent on structural topology, with functional connections within the rich-club core exhibiting the greatest stability over time. We discuss these findings in light of highly variable functional hubs. The results further elucidate how large-scale dynamic functional coordination exists within a fixed structural architecture., (Copyright © 2015 the authors 0270-6474/15/355579-10$15.00/0.)

The complex network dynamics that arise from the interaction of the brain's structural and functional architectures give rise to mental function. Theoretical models demonstrate that the structure-function relation is maximal when the global network dynamics operate at a critical point of state transition. In the present work, we used a dynamic mean-field neural model to fit empirical structural connectivity (SC) and functional connectivity (FC) data acquired in humans and macaques and developed a new iterative-fitting algorithm to optimize the SC matrix based on the FC matrix. A dramatic improvement of the fitting of the matrices was obtained with the addition of a small number of anatomical links, particularly cross-hemispheric connections, and reweighting of existing connections. We suggest that the notion of a critical working point, where the structure-function interplay is maximal, may provide a new way to link behavior and cognition, and a new perspective to understand recovery of function in clinical conditions., (Copyright © 2014 the authors 0270-6474/14/347910-07$15.00/0.)

Searching for a visual object naturally involves sequences of gaze fixations, during which the current foveal image is analyzed and the next object to inspect is selected as a saccade target. Fixation durations during such sequences are short, suggesting that saccades may be concurrently processed. Therefore, the selection of the next saccade target may occur before the current saccade target is acquired. To test this hypothesis, we trained four female rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) to perform a multiple-fixation visual conjunction search task. We simultaneously recorded the activity of sensorimotor neurons in the midbrain superior colliculus (SC) in two monkeys. In this task, monkeys made multiple fixations before foveating the target. Fixation durations were significantly shorter than the latency of the initial responses to the search display, with approximately one-quarter being shorter than the shortest response latencies. The time at which SC sensorimotor activity discriminated the target from distracters occurred significantly earlier for the selection of subsequent fixations than for the selection of the first fixation. Target selection during subsequent fixations occurred even before the visual afferent delay in more than half of the neuronal sample, suggesting that the process of selection can encompass at least two future saccade targets. This predictive selection was present even when differences in saccade latencies were taken into account. Altogether, these findings demonstrate how neural representations on the visual salience map are processed in parallel, thus facilitating visual search.

Computational and empirical neuroimaging studies have suggested that the anatomical connections between brain regions primarily constrain their functional interactions. Given that the large-scale organization of functional networks is determined by the temporal relationships between brain regions, the structural limitations may extend to the global characteristics of functional networks. Here, we explored the extent to which the functional network community structure is determined by the underlying anatomical architecture. We directly compared macaque (Macaca fascicularis) functional connectivity (FC) assessed using spontaneous blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (BOLD-fMRI) to directed anatomical connectivity derived from macaque axonal tract tracing studies. Consistent with previous reports, FC increased with increasing strength of anatomical connection, and FC was also present between regions that had no direct anatomical connection. We observed moderate similarity between the FC of each region and its anatomical connectivity. Notably, anatomical connectivity patterns, as described by structural motifs, were different within and across functional modules: partitioning of the functional network was supported by dense bidirectional anatomical connections within clusters and unidirectional connections between clusters. Together, our data directly demonstrate that the FC patterns observed in resting-state BOLD-fMRI are dictated by the underlying neuroanatomical architecture. Importantly, we show how this architecture contributes to the global organizational principles of both functional specialization and integration.

The ability of sensory-motor circuits to integrate sensory evidence over time is thought to underlie the process of decision-making in perceptual discrimination. Recent work has suggested that the NMDA receptor contributes to mediating neural activity integration. To test this hypothesis, we trained three female rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) to perform a visual search task, in which they had to make a saccadic eye movement to the location of a target stimulus presented among distracter stimuli of lower luminance. We manipulated NMDA-receptor function by administering an intramuscular injection of the noncompetitive NMDA antagonist ketamine and assessed visual search performance before and after manipulation. Ketamine was found to lengthen response latency in a dose-dependent fashion. Surprisingly, it was also observed that response accuracy was significantly improved when lower doses were administered. These findings suggest that NMDA receptors play a crucial role in the process of decision-making in perceptual discrimination. They also further support the idea that multiple neural representations compete with one another through mutual inhibition, which may explain the speed-accuracy trade-off rule that shapes discrimination behavior: lengthening integration time helps resolve small differences between choice alternatives, thereby improving accuracy.