Origins of feature selectivities and maps in the mammalian primary visual cortex

Trichur R Vidyasagar; Ulf T Eysel

Journal article

Origins of feature selectivities and maps in the mammalian primary visual cortex

Trichur R Vidyasagar, Ulf T Eysel

TRENDS IN NEUROSCIENCES | ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON | Published : 2015

DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2015.06.003

Abstract

A common feature of the mammalian striate cortex is the arrangement of 'orientation domains' containing neurons preferring similar stimulus orientations. They are arranged as spokes of a pinwheel that converge at singularities known as 'pinwheel centers'. We propose that a cortical network of feedforward and intracortical lateral connections elaborates a full set of optimum orientations from geniculate inputs that show a bias to stimulus orientation and form a set of two or a small number of 'Cartesian' coordinates. Because each geniculate afferent carries signals only from one eye and its receptive field (RF) is either ON or OFF center, the network constructs also ocular dominance columns a..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Trichur Vidyasagar Author Optometry and Vision Sciences

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Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Awarded by German Research Foundation (DFG)

Funding Acknowledgements

The work was supported by grants from the Australian Research Council (LX0453702, DP0986247 and DP120103078) and by a grant (SFB 874, A2) from the German Research Foundation (DFG). We thank Dr Zoltan Kisvarday for discussions and Dr Sivaram Viswanathan for discussions and help in preparing the figures.