@phdthesis{18574,
  abstract     = {Biological vision is unlike a camera; rather than transmitting light information faithfully, early
visual circuits process the visual scene to convey only the relevant information in an efficient
manner. Consequentially, the nature of this visual processing then depends on what is the
relevant information in a scene and on the notion of efficiency. In this work, I study how visual
processing is modulated by two different variations in the visual scene. First, I discovered that
in the mouse (Mus musculus) retina, Retinal Ganglion Cells in the upper and lower visual
field have differences in the center surround structure of their receptive fields. Comparison
with models of efficient coding show that this adaptation likely evolved to cope with the
brightness gradient from the sky to the ground that is pervasive in natural scenes. In the
second project, I study how the downstream neurons in the Superior Colliculus dynamically
change their temporal selectivity depending on the ambient luminance and behavioral state.
As the scene gets darker or when the animal is is less aroused, the neuronal responses get
laggier, while still maintaining their relative timing with respect to the population. Overall, this
work emphasises the need to understand visual processing in the context of specific demands
of the animal in its the environment. The adaptive changes in the visual system, from the
retinal ganglion cells to the superior colliculus, highlight the intricate ways in which biological
vision optimizes the processing of visual information.
},
  author       = {Gupta, Divyansh},
  isbn         = {978-3-99078-050-3},
  issn         = {2663-337X},
  pages        = {86},
  publisher    = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria},
  title        = {{Visual adaptations to natural statistics}},
  doi          = {10.15479/at:ista:18574},
  year         = {2024},
}

@article{12349,
  abstract     = {Statistics of natural scenes are not uniform - their structure varies dramatically from ground to sky. It remains unknown whether these non-uniformities are reflected in the large-scale organization of the early visual system and what benefits such adaptations would confer. Here, by relying on the efficient coding hypothesis, we predict that changes in the structure of receptive fields across visual space increase the efficiency of sensory coding. We show experimentally that, in agreement with our predictions, receptive fields of retinal ganglion cells change their shape along the dorsoventral retinal axis, with a marked surround asymmetry at the visual horizon. Our work demonstrates that, according to principles of efficient coding, the panoramic structure of natural scenes is exploited by the retina across space and cell-types.},
  author       = {Gupta, Divyansh and Mlynarski, Wiktor F and Sumser, Anton L and Symonova, Olga and Svaton, Jan and Jösch, Maximilian A},
  issn         = {1546-1726},
  journal      = {Nature Neuroscience},
  pages        = {606--614},
  publisher    = {Springer Nature},
  title        = {{Panoramic visual statistics shape retina-wide organization of receptive fields}},
  doi          = {10.1038/s41593-023-01280-0},
  volume       = {26},
  year         = {2023},
}

@misc{12370,
  abstract     = {Statistics of natural scenes are not uniform - their structure varies dramatically from ground to sky. It remains unknown whether these non-uniformities are reflected in the large-scale organization of the early visual system and what benefits such adaptations would confer. Here, by relying on the efficient coding hypothesis, we predict that changes in the structure of receptive fields across visual space increase the efficiency of sensory coding. We show experimentally that, in agreement with our predictions, receptive fields of retinal ganglion cells change their shape along the dorsoventral retinal axis, with a marked surround asymmetry at the visual horizon. Our work demonstrates that, according to principles of efficient coding, the panoramic structure of natural scenes is exploited by the retina across space and cell-types. },
  author       = {Gupta, Divyansh and Sumser, Anton L and Jösch, Maximilian A},
  publisher    = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria},
  title        = {{Research Data for: Panoramic visual statistics shape retina-wide organization of receptive fields}},
  doi          = {10.15479/AT:ISTA:12370},
  year         = {2023},
}