Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41238593›Full record

ArticleNature communications2025

Top-down perceptual inference shaping the activity of early visual cortex.

Ferenc Csikor, Balázs Meszéna, Katalin Ócsai, Gergő Orbán

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Ferenc CsikorDepartment of Computational Sciences, HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest, 1121, Hungary. csikor.ferenc@wigner.hun-ren.hu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7840-2873
Balázs MeszénaDepartment of Computational Sciences, HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest, 1121, Hungary.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0002-0661-9595
Katalin ÓcsaiDepartment of Computational Sciences, HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest, 1121, Hungary.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9163-6658
Gergő OrbánDepartment of Computational Sciences, HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest, 1121, Hungary. orban.gergo@wigner.hun-ren.hu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2406-5912

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Deep discriminative models provide remarkable insights into hierarchical processing in the brain by predicting neural activity along the visual pathway. However, these models differ from biological systems in their computational and architectural properties. Unlike biological systems, they require teaching signals for supervised learning. Moreover, they rely on feed-forward processing of stimuli, which contrasts with the extensive top-down connections in the ventral pathway. Here, we address both issues by developing a hierarchical deep generative model and show that it predicts an extensive set of experimental results in the primary and secondary visual cortices (V1 and V2). We show that the widely documented sensitivity of V2 neurons to textures is a consequence of learning a hierarchical representation of natural images. Further, we show that top-down influences are inherent to hierarchical inference. Hierarchical inference explains neural signatures of top-down interactions and reveals how higher-level representation shapes low-level representations through modulation of response mean and noise correlations in V1.

Indexed as

AutoencoderModels, NeurologicalVisual CortexVisual PathwaysVisual PerceptionAnimalsMacacaNeuronsPhotic Stimulation

Identifiers

PMID41238593
PMCPMC12618887

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.