Computational principles of microcircuits for visual object processing in the macaque temporal cortex

Understanding the principles of neuronal computation that underlie our cognitive abilities is a fundamental goal of neuroscience. Microcircuits are thought to be computational units embedded in a brain-wide neuronal network. Recent progress in experimental and analytical techniques has enabled the exploration of information flow in operating microcircuits of behaving monkeys. Accumulating evidence demonstrates that crucial transformations of neuronal codes for the representation and memory retrieval of visual objects occur in cortical microcircuits. Particularly, microcircuit comparisons across cortical areas provide novel principles for object processing, in which precursor codes for object features are constructed in a lower-order area before prevalence in a higher-order area. We review recent findings on microcircuit operations in macaque temporal cortex that enable object processing, and discuss future research directions.