Spatial coding of position and orientation in primary visual cortex.

William H Bosking; Justin C Crowley; David Fitzpatrick

doi:10.1038/nn908

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PubMed · 12195429

Spatial coding of position and orientation in primary visual cortex.

William H Bosking·Justin C Crowley·David Fitzpatrick

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Abstract

We examined the spatial distribution of population activity in primary visual cortex (V1) of tree shrews with optical imaging and electrophysiology. A line stimulus, thinner than the average V1 receptive field, evoked a broad strip of neural activity of nearly constant size for all stimulus locations tested within the central 10 degrees of visual space. Stimuli in adjacent positions activated highly overlapping populations of neurons; nevertheless, small changes in stimulus position produced orderly changes in the location of the peak of the population response. Statistically significant shifts in the population response were found for stimulus displacements an order of magnitude smaller than receptive field width, down to the limit of optical imaging resolution. Based on the pattern of population activity, we conclude that the map of visual space in V1 is orderly at a fine scale and has uniform coverage of position and orientation without local relationships in the mapping of these features.

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Action Potentials Animals Brain Mapping Evoked Potentials, Visual Female Male Nerve Net Neural Pathways Neurons Orientation Pattern Recognition, Visual Photic Stimulation Tupaia Visual Cortex Visual Fields Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

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William H Bosking, Justin C Crowley, David Fitzpatrick. 2002. Spatial coding of position and orientation in primary visual cortex.. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn908

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