Becker, Markus and Babu, Savanna and Wang, Zhiyan and Frank, Sebastian M. (2025) Suppression of task-irrelevant learning achieved through withdrawal of excitation in early sensory areas. CEREBRAL CORTEX, 35 (12): bhaf333. ISSN 1047-3211, 1460-2199
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
Little is known about neural mechanisms that suppress learning, although such mechanisms are crucial for adaptive learning, which occurs selectively for items relevant to an observer's task but not for task-irrelevant items. Here, we examined neural mechanisms involved in suppressing visual perceptual learning (VPL), a type of visual skill learning, for a repeatedly exposed task-irrelevant coherent motion direction. The direction was either perceptually salient (suprathreshold for coherent motion detection) or weak (near detection threshold). Excitatory and inhibitory processing of the task-irrelevant direction during exposure was measured in early visual areas (V1 and V2) in the occipital lobes with functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy (fMRS). The results showed that, compared to near threshold exposure, VPL for the coherent motion direction was suppressed in suprathreshold exposure. Excitatory processing in early visual areas, as reflected in the concentration of glutamate, was reduced during suprathreshold compared to near threshold exposure. No modulation of inhibitory processing, as reflected in the concentration of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), was found. These results suggest that a gating mechanism operates within early visual areas that acts to suppress VPL for salient task-irrelevant signals by reducing excitatory processing.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-SPECTROSCOPY; SURFACE-BASED ANALYSIS; PRIMARY VISUAL-CORTEX; TOP-DOWN INFLUENCES; GLUTAMATE; ATTENTION; GABA; PSYCHOPHYSICS; STIMULI; MOTOR; gating; glutamate; learning; suppression; task-irrelevant |
| Subjects: | 100 Philosophy & psychology > 150 Psychology |
| Divisions: | Human Sciences > Institut für Psychologie |
| Depositing User: | Dr. Gernot Deinzer |
| Date Deposited: | 27 Aug 2026 09:08 |
| Last Modified: | 27 Aug 2026 09:08 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/66162 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
