The influence of restricted orientation rearing on map structure in primary visual cortex

Abstract

Visual experience is critical to the development of the structure of the primary visual cortex and, in turn, normal functional vision. The primary visual cortex contains maps of multiple features of the visual input, and these maps are characterised by specific types of geometric relationships. Manipulations of the visual environment during development in animals such as ferrets, cats and monkeys provide an opportunity to probe the rules governing map formation via their effect on these relationships. Here we use a computational model of map formation based on dimension-reduction principles to predict the effect on map relationships of presenting only a single orientation to one eye and the ..