This Week in The Journal

Humans adapt to changing external environments and stimuli via adaptations that occur in sensory neurons.But how inputs to these neurons from external stimuli are distributed across the brain to support neuronal adaptation and sensory processing is not clear.Davila and Kohn explored sensory adaptation in this issue by probing how different sensory stimuli change visual cortex responses in macaque monkeys.They first assessed how neuronal activity in the visual cortex (V1) and area V2 changes with exposure to different textures.Both regions were responsive to textures, but V2 neurons were more sensitive.To explore whether the type of stimulus alters neuronal adaptations in these brain regions, the authors compared textures with random noise images.Again, responses occurred in both brain regions, but V2 neurons were less responsive to noise than texture images and adaptations were weaker with noise images in V2.These findings shed light on how image properties influence neural adaptations and may have broader implications for other sensory systems.