Contribution of linear and nonlinear mechanisms to predictive motion estimation

Successful behavior relies on the ability to use information obtained from past experience to predict what is likely to occur in the future. A salient example of predictive encoding comes from the vertebrate retina, where neural circuits encode information that can be used to estimate the trajectory of a moving object. Predictive computations should be a general property of sensory systems, but the features needed to identify these computations across neural systems are not well understood. Here, we identify several properties of predictive computations in the primate retina that likely generalize across sensory systems. These features include calculating the derivative of incoming signals, sparse signal integration, and delayed response suppression. These findings provide a deeper understanding of how the brain carries out predictive computations and identify features that can be used to recognize these computations throughout the brain.