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Applications of the population receptive field technique in the field of neural mechanisms of sensory perception

YE Jing¹, FANG Fang^2,3,4,5,6, HE Dong-Jun^7,*

¹chool of Pharmacy, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu 610500, China；²School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Beijing 100871, China；³Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Beijing 100871, China；⁴Key Laboratory of Machine Perception (Ministry of Education), Beijing 100871, China；⁵Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University,Beijing 100871, China；⁶IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China；⁷Sichuan Research Center of Applied Psychology, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu 610500, China

Abstract

The population receptive field (pRF) of a voxel is the joint receptive field of the population of neurons within the voxel. Using a non-invasive pRF technique, researcher can estimate the pRF position and size parameters of each voxel in human brain. These pRF parameters provide an excellent research basis to study neural mechanisms of sensory perception. Although the pRF technique has developed very rapidly in recent years and been widely used in the field of neural mechanisms of sensory perception, related review article is still absent. Here, we provide an overview of the pRF technique. First, we briefly introduce research methods of this technique. Next, we focus on applications of this technique in the field of neural mechanisms of sensory perception. Then, we discuss advantages and limitations of the pRF technique in practical application. In the end, we give some suggestions on the future application direction of the pRF technique. The pRF technique has played an important role in the research of neural mechanism of sensory perception, and it would play a more important role in the future.

Key words: population receptive field; functional magnetic resonance imaging; neural mechanism of sensory perception; attentional field

Received: 2018-04-25　　Accepted: 2018-08-22

Corresponding author: 何东军　　E-mail: hedongjun@cmc.edu.cn

DOI: 10.13294/j.aps.2018.0077

Citing This Article：

YE Jing, FANG Fang, HE Dong-Jun. Applications of the population receptive field technique in the field of neural mechanisms of sensory perception. Acta Physiol Sin 2019; 71 (1): 156-162 (in Chinese with English abstract).