bioRxiv Science⌕ Search
Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2025.04.22.649972

Disentangling Arousal and Attentional Contributions to Pupil Size: Toward Simultaneous Estimation of Emotional and Cognitive States

Tsutsumi, T.·Kanari, K.
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Pupillary response serves as a noninvasive physiological marker of autonomic activity, modulated by both emotional arousal and the luminance of attended visual stimuli. However, these factors often co-occur, making it difficult to disentangle their individual contributions. This study investigated how auditory emotional stimuli and attention-guided changes in luminance independently influence pupil dynamics. Participants were instructed to direct their visual attention to either white or black moving dot patterns, and to shift their attention upon the onset of an emotional sound. Pupil responses were z-normalized on a per-trial basis, and optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) was recorded to verify attentional shifts. Results showed that emotional arousal robustly increased pupil size across conditions, while valence had no significant main effect. Pupil size was also modulated by the luminance of the attended stimulus, reflecting parasympathetic influences. No significant interaction between arousal and valence was observed, suggesting additive rather than interactive effects. These findings emphasize the methodological necessity of controlling attentional luminance in pupillometric studies and highlight the potential of pupil-based measures for emotion-aware system design. Crucially, because pupil dynamics reflect both luminance-guided attention and emotional arousal via distinct autonomic pathways, combining pupillometry with nonverbal indicators of attention--such as optokinetic nystagmus (OKN)--may enable the simultaneous estimation of attentional focus and emotional state in real time.

Explore related subjects

neurosciencePreprint

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Tsutsumi, T., Kanari, K.. 2025-04-29. Disentangling Arousal and Attentional Contributions to Pupil Size: Toward Simultaneous Estimation of Emotional and Cognitive States. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.04.22.649972

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

Connexin 40 deficiency alters the temporal profile of postictal oxygen dynamics following focal seizures.

Epilepsy is increasingly recognized as a disorder involving both neuronal and vascular dysfunction. While connexin signaling has been implicated in epileptogenesis, the contribution of vascular connexins to seizure associated cerebrovascular pathology remains poorly understood. Connexin40 (Cx40) is an endothelial gap junction protein that plays a crucial role in vascular communication and blood-flow regulation. Seizures induce dynamic changes in cerebral perfusion and oxygenation, including prolonged postictal hypoperfusion/hypoxia. To determine whether Cx40 influences postictal hypoxia following focal seizures, we examined seizure characteristics and postictal oxygen dynamics in Cx40 knockout (Cx40-/-) mice using an established focal hippocampal seizure model. Electrically kindled seizures were elicited in wild-type and Cx40-/- mice, and local hippocampal tissue oxygenation was continuously monitored before and after seizure induction. Seizure duration did not differ between genotypes, indicating comparable seizure severity. Interestingly, Cx40 deletion altered the temporal pattern of postictal oxygen recovery, producing greater early hypoxia and a delayed secondary rebound in pO2 despite similar peak oxygen levels and overall hypoxic burden. These findings demonstrate that loss of Cx40 selectively alters the temporal profile of postictal oxygen dynamics without affecting seizure duration. Taken together, the results suggest that endothelial gap junctional communication contributes to postictal vascular recovery and identify Cx40 as a potential modulator of seizure associated neurovascular dysfunction.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Attention Across Scales: From Individual Variation to Social Hierarchies and Brain Networks in Semi-Free-Ranging Macaques

Attention is a fundamental brain function supporting perception, decision-making, and social behavior, and its dysfunction profoundly impairs daily life. It is both dynamic and stable, varying across observations and individuals, changing across the lifespan, and being shaped by social and environmental experience. Yet capturing this complexity remains a central challenge in neuroscience. Here, we integrated longitudinal behavioral assessments of semi-free-ranging macaques living in naturalistic social groups with resting-state fMRI. We quantified performance across days, ages, and social hierarchies and related it to intrinsic brain organization. Distinct attentional phenotypes emerged, including individuals with reduced attentional control. Performance followed an inverted-U lifespan trajectory, improving from childhood to adulthood before declining. Social status modulated attentional performance. Critically, nonlinear lifespan trajectories and associations with individual attentional differences were most clearly expressed in frontoparietal connectivity. Together, these findings reveal how sustained attention is organized across scales, providing a biological framework for its individual diversity, social modulation, and neural basis.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Decoding natural scenes from patterned optogenetic responses in mouse visual cortex

A central challenge in developing visual cortical prostheses is to determine how visual stimuli should be transformed into effective patterns of cortical stimulation. Although advances in stimulation technologies, including optogenetics, provide increasingly precise control over cortical activity, it remains unclear whether artificially evoked activity can reproduce the information content of naturally evoked visual representations. Here we establish a quantitative framework for evaluating visual encoding strategies by decoding cortical responses evoked by natural vision and patterned optogenetic stimulation. We developed a novel dual-modal paradigm in awake mice to bridge the gap between endogenous photostimulation and artificial network driving. By co-expressing the high-performance calcium indicator GCaMP6s and the red-shifted, ultra-sensitive opsin rsChRmine-oScarlet in the primary visual cortex (V1), we successfully translated dynamic natural movie frames into patterned, spatiotemporal optogenetic stimulation. Quantitative comparisons of macro-scale dynamics demonstrated that this patterned optogenetic injection evokes cortical states highly comparable and representationally aligned with those driven by actual visual photostimulation. To systematically evaluate the fidelity of these responses, we developed STAR, a deep learning model featuring spatial and temporal attention mechanisms, and successfully reconstructed the frames of natural movies from V1 signals under both experimental modalities. Collectively, our results demonstrate that complex sensory information can be both naturally encoded and synthetically injected into V1 circuits with high decoding fidelity. This work provides an empirical and computational proof-of-concept for intelligent, closed-loop biomimetic encoders, establishing a robust framework for next-generation cortical visual neuroprostheses and bidirectional brain-machine interfaces.

neuroscience↗