Common Phenomenal and Neural Substrate Geometry in Visual Motion Perception
bioRxiv Preprint Server October 1, 2025 Kallum Robinson, Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston, Jiahao Wu et al. 1 citation preprint
The qualitative aspects of consciousness (qualia) are difficult to study because they are subjective. This work takes a first step toward linking the structure of qualia to brain activity by comparing human dissimilarity ratings of visual motion experiences with neural population responses in mouse primary visual cortex. Human participants (N=171) rated dissimilarity of 48 visual motion stimuli. Mouse neural activity (n=751 neurons) was recorded from nine mice using optical imaging. Both human and mouse data showed structural commonalities: a categorical organization of stimulus direction best explained both structures. These commonalities were similar in awake and anaesthetized mice, suggesting coarse V1 geometry is relatively insensitive to this anesthesia. The authors note that future work combining behavior with causal intervention is needed to relate such neural structures to conscious experience.