arXiv:2611.13316v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Neural dynamics are a central feature of biological neural systems. In the visual cortex, the functional role of neural dynamics is poorly understood, particularly for static stimuli. The statistics of still natural images have long been used by models that successfully predict firing in early visual cortex; those models assume that neurons represent inferences about latent image features, but often ignore the dynamics of said inference. Here, we test if inferential dynamics in images explain visual-cortical dynamics. To do so, we present a biologically plausible model of cortical computation which assumes that the inference of features is coupled with inference about how those features are organized into meaningful parts, a function also known as segmentation. Given an input image, our model iterates between inferring the features and the segments, through recurrence and feedback, thus inducing dynamics in the neural representation of features. For these neural dynamics, we derive theoretical and exact predictions. Our model predicts both gain and variability in evoked responses to natural images, and we show that it captures classical single-neuron experimental findings such as gain dynamics and variability decay during stimulus presentation. The model also predicts that those dynamics are organized around inferred segment structure and more heterogeneous than previously thought, reflecting the complexity of inference for natural scenes. Finally, our analytical formulation provides a clear interpretation of our results. Insights from our normative model could generalize to segmentation problems in other experimental modalities, and help address the cost of inference in artificial networks with iterative computation.