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Primary visual cortex neurons that contribute to resolve the aperture problem

Primary visual cortex neurons that contribute to resolve the aperture problem
Primary visual cortex neurons that contribute to resolve the aperture problem
It is traditional to believe that neurons in primary visual cortex are sensitive only or principally to stimulation within a spatially restricted receptive field (classical receptive field). It follows from this that they should only be capable of encoding the direction of stimulus movement orthogonal to the local contour, since this is the only information available in their classical receptive field “aperture.” This direction is not necessarily the same as the motion of the entire object, as the direction cue within an aperture is ambiguous to the global direction of motion, which can only be derived by integrating with unambiguous components of the object. Recent results, however, show that primary visual cortex neurons can integrate spatially and temporally distributed cues outside the classical receptive field, and so we reexamined whether primary visual cortex neurons suffer the “aperture problem.” With the stimulation of an optimally oriented bar drifting across the classical receptive field in different global directions, here we show that a subpopulation of primary visual cortex neurons (25/81) recorded from anesthetized and paralyzed marmosets is capable of integrating informative unambiguous direction cues presented by the bar ends, well outside their classical receptive fields, to encode global motion direction. Although the stimuli within the classical receptive field were identical, their directional responses were significantly modulated according to the global direction of stimulus movement. Hence, some primary visual cortex neurons are not local motion energy filters, but may encode signals that contribute directly to global motion processing.
0306-4522
1397-1406
Guo, Kun
b0139c51-daaf-4e64-80b3-f8d406338c13
Robertson, Robert
9a5cce23-88d0-4c43-8a12-a2235d16507d
Nevado, Angel
e56dfcb9-d13c-4a13-ab46-559996fd6111
Pulgarin, M
2be25af4-2138-44f1-aa96-37eba7a64478
Mahmoodi, Sasan
91ca8da4-95dc-4c1e-ac0e-f2c08d6ac7cf
Young, Malcom
f815ea84-a2e0-4f45-9752-cb29524797cc
Guo, Kun
b0139c51-daaf-4e64-80b3-f8d406338c13
Robertson, Robert
9a5cce23-88d0-4c43-8a12-a2235d16507d
Nevado, Angel
e56dfcb9-d13c-4a13-ab46-559996fd6111
Pulgarin, M
2be25af4-2138-44f1-aa96-37eba7a64478
Mahmoodi, Sasan
91ca8da4-95dc-4c1e-ac0e-f2c08d6ac7cf
Young, Malcom
f815ea84-a2e0-4f45-9752-cb29524797cc

Guo, Kun, Robertson, Robert, Nevado, Angel, Pulgarin, M, Mahmoodi, Sasan and Young, Malcom (2006) Primary visual cortex neurons that contribute to resolve the aperture problem. Neuroscience, 138 (4), 1397-1406. (doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2005.12.016).

Record type: Article

Abstract

It is traditional to believe that neurons in primary visual cortex are sensitive only or principally to stimulation within a spatially restricted receptive field (classical receptive field). It follows from this that they should only be capable of encoding the direction of stimulus movement orthogonal to the local contour, since this is the only information available in their classical receptive field “aperture.” This direction is not necessarily the same as the motion of the entire object, as the direction cue within an aperture is ambiguous to the global direction of motion, which can only be derived by integrating with unambiguous components of the object. Recent results, however, show that primary visual cortex neurons can integrate spatially and temporally distributed cues outside the classical receptive field, and so we reexamined whether primary visual cortex neurons suffer the “aperture problem.” With the stimulation of an optimally oriented bar drifting across the classical receptive field in different global directions, here we show that a subpopulation of primary visual cortex neurons (25/81) recorded from anesthetized and paralyzed marmosets is capable of integrating informative unambiguous direction cues presented by the bar ends, well outside their classical receptive fields, to encode global motion direction. Although the stimuli within the classical receptive field were identical, their directional responses were significantly modulated according to the global direction of stimulus movement. Hence, some primary visual cortex neurons are not local motion energy filters, but may encode signals that contribute directly to global motion processing.

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Published date: 2006
Organisations: Southampton Wireless Group

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 265880
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/265880
ISSN: 0306-4522
PURE UUID: 66b446f4-fb52-4129-b7ec-081568e8b6d5

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Date deposited: 10 Jun 2008 10:17
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 08:17

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Contributors

Author: Kun Guo
Author: Robert Robertson
Author: Angel Nevado
Author: M Pulgarin
Author: Sasan Mahmoodi
Author: Malcom Young

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