Empirically validated theoretical analysis of visual-spatial perception under change of nervous system arousal

Introduction: Visual-spatial perception is a process for extracting the spatial relationship between objects in the environment. The changes in visual-spatial perception due to factors such as the activity of the sympathetic nervous system (hyperactivation) or parasympathetic nervous system (hypoactivation) can affect the internal representation of the external visual-spatial world. We formulated a quantitative model of the modulation of visual-perceptual space under action by hyperactivation or hypoactivation-inducing neuromodulating agents. We showed a Hill equation based relationship between neuromodulator agent concentration and alteration of visual-spatial perception utilizing the metric tensor to quantify the visual space.

Methods: We computed the dynamics of the psilocybin (hyperactivation-inducing agent) and chlorpromazine (hypoactivation-inducing agent) in brain tissue. Then, we validated our quantitative model by analyzing the findings of different independent behavioral studies where subjects were assessed for alterations in visual-spatial perception under the action of psilocybin and under chlorpromazine. To validate the neuronal correlates, we simulated the effect of the neuromodulating agent on the computational model of the grid-cell network, and also performed diffusion MRI-based tractography to find the neural tracts between the cortical areas involved: V2 and the entorhinal cortex.

Results: We applied our computational model to an experiment (where perceptual alterations were measured under psilocybin) and found that for n (Hill-coefficient) = 14.8 and k = 1.39, the theoretical prediction followed experimental observations very well (χ2 test robustly satisfied, p > 0.99). We predicted the outcome of another psilocybin-based experiment using these values ( n = 14.8 and k = 1.39), whereby our prediction and experimental outcomes were well corroborated. Furthermore, we found that also under hypoactivation (chlorpromazine), the modulation of the visual-spatial perception follows our model. Moreover, we found neural tracts between the area V2 and entorhinal cortex, thus providing a possible brain network responsible for encoding visual-spatial perception. Thence, we simulated the altered grid-cell network activity, which was also found to follow the Hill equation.

Conclusion: We developed a computational model of visuospatial perceptual alterations under altered neural sympathetic/parasympathetic tone. We validated our model using analysis of behavioral studies, neuroimaging assessment, and neurocomputational evaluation. Our quantitative approach may be probed as a potential behavioral screening and monitoring methodology in neuropsychology to analyze perceptual misjudgment and mishaps by highly stressed workers.