scholarly journals The representation of three-dimensional visual space in the cat's striate cortex

1970 ◽  
Vol 209 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Blakemore
2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1697) ◽  
pp. 20150255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sid Henriksen ◽  
Seiji Tanabe ◽  
Bruce Cumming

The first step in binocular stereopsis is to match features on the left retina with the correct features on the right retina, discarding ‘false’ matches. The physiological processing of these signals starts in the primary visual cortex, where the binocular energy model has been a powerful framework for understanding the underlying computation. For this reason, it is often used when thinking about how binocular matching might be performed beyond striate cortex. But this step depends critically on the accuracy of the model, and real V1 neurons show several properties that suggest they may be less sensitive to false matches than the energy model predicts. Several recent studies provide empirical support for an extended version of the energy model, in which the same principles are used, but the responses of single neurons are described as the sum of several subunits, each of which follows the principles of the energy model. These studies have significantly improved our understanding of the role played by striate cortex in the stereo correspondence problem. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Vision in our three-dimensional world’.


1999 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manouchehr S. Vafaee ◽  
Ernst Meyer ◽  
Sean Marrett ◽  
T. Paus ◽  
Alan C. Evans ◽  
...  

To test the hypothesis that brain oxidative metabolism is significantly increased upon adequate stimulation, we varied the presentation of a visual stimulus to determine the frequency at which the metabolic response would be at maximum. The authors measured regional CMR O2 in 12 healthy normal volunteers with the ECAT EXACT HR+ (CTI/Siemens, Knoxville, TN, U.S.A.) three-dimensional whole-body positron emission tomograph (PET). In seven successive activating conditions, subjects viewed a yellow-blue annular checkerboard reversing its contrast at frequencies of 0, 1, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 50 Hz. Stimulation began 4 minutes before and continued throughout the 3-minute dynamic scan. In the baseline condition, the subjects began fixating a cross hair 30 seconds before the scan and continued to do so for the duration of the 3-minute scan. At the start of each scan, the subjects inhaled 20 mCi of 15O-O2 in a single breath. The CMR O2 value was calculated using a two-compartment, weighted integration method. Normalized PET images were averaged across subjects and coregistered with the subjects' magnetic resonance imaging in stereotaxic space. Mean subtracted image volumes (activation minus baseline) of CMR O2 then were obtained and converted to z statistic volumes. The authors found a statistically significant focal change of CMR O2 in the striate cortex (x = 9; y = −89; z = −1) that reached a maximum at 4 Hz and dropped off sharply at higher stimulus frequencies.


1985 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Somogyi ◽  
A J Hodgson

Two methods are described for the immunocytochemical demonstration of immunoreactive gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in the visual cortex of the cat, an area that contains several types of GABAergic neurons and requires combined methods for their characterization. The first method is illustrated by a representative example of a Golgi-impregnated and gold-toned interneuron of the "bitufted" type situated in layer VI and having an ascending axon. After recording the three-dimensional features of the cell, semithin (0.5 micron) sections of the perikaryon were cut and GABA was demonstrated in the cell body by the unlabeled antibody enzyme method. While immunocytochemistry was used to determine the probable transmitter of the neuron, Golgi-impregnation of the same cell was used to identify its neuronal type. Since aldehyde-osmium fixation was used, further electron microscopic (EM) analysis of the neuron's synaptic connections was possible. The second procedure demonstrated GABA in EM sections of aldehyde-osmium-fixed cortex using protein A-gold as an immunocytochemical marker. Immunoreactivity was found in certain neurons, dendrites, axons, and boutons forming type II synaptic contacts that from previous studies have been thought to be GABAergic. Thus ultrastructural analysis using optimal conditions can now be supplemented with the identification of the transmitter in the same section.


2001 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 2112-2117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Smith ◽  
J. Douglas Crawford

Recent studies have suggested that during saccades cortical and subcortical representations of visual targets are represented and remapped in retinal coordinates. If this is correct, then the remapping processes must incorporate the noncommutativity of rotations. For example, our three-dimensional (3-D) simulations of the commutative vector-subtraction model of retinocentric remapping predicted centripetal errors in saccade trajectories between “remembered” eccentric targets, whereas our noncommutative model predicted accurate saccades. We tested between these two models in five head-fixed human subjects. Typically, a central fixation light appeared and two peripheral targets were flashed. With all targets extinguished, subjects were required to saccade to the remembered location of one of the peripheral targets and saccade between their remembered locations. Subjects showed minor misestimations of the spatial locations of targets, but failed to show the cumulative pattern of errors predicted by the commutative model. This experiment indicates that if targets are remapped in a retinal frame, then the remapping process also takes the noncommutativity of 3-D eye rotations into account. Unlike other noncommutative aspects of eye rotations that may have mechanical explanations, the noncommutative aspects of this process must be entirely internal.


1994 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 347-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. C. DeAngelis ◽  
R. D. Freeman ◽  
I. Ohzawa

1. The classically defined receptive field of a visual neuron is the area of visual space over which the cell responds to visual stimuli. It is well established, however, that the discharge produced by an optimal stimulus can be modulated by the presence of additional stimuli that by themselves do not produce any response. This study examines inhibitory influences that originate from areas located outside of the classical (i.e., excitatory) receptive field. Previous work has shown that for some cells the response to a properly oriented bar of light becomes attenuated when the bar extends beyond the receptive field, a phenomenon known as end-inhibition (or length tuning). Analogously, it has been shown that increasing the number of cycles of a drifting grating stimulus may also inhibit the firing of some cells, an effect known as side-inhibition (or width tuning). Very little information is available, however, about the relationship between end- and side-inhibition. We have examined the spatial organization and tuning characteristics of these inhibitory effects by recording extracellularly from single neurons in the cat's striate cortex (Area 17). 2. For each cortical neuron, length and width tuning curves were obtained with the use of rectangular patches of drifting sinusoidal gratings that have variable length and width. Results from 82 cells show that the strengths of end- and side-inhibition tend to be correlated. Most cells that exhibit clear end-inhibition also show a similar degree of side-inhibition. For these cells, the excitatory receptive field is surrounded on all sides by inhibitory zones. Some cells exhibit only end- or side-inhibition, but not both. Data for 28 binocular cells show that length and width tuning curves for the dominant and nondominant eyes tend to be closely matched. 3. We also measured tuning characteristics of end- and side-inhibition. To obtain these data, the excitatory receptive field was stimulated with a grating patch having optimal orientation, spatial frequency, and size, whereas the end- or side-inhibitory regions were stimulated with patches of gratings that had a variable parameter (such as orientation). Results show that end- and side-inhibition tend to be strongest at the orientation and spatial frequency that yield maximal excitation. However, orientation and spatial frequency tuning curves for inhibition are considerably broader than those for excitation, suggesting that inhibition is mediated by a pool of neurons.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


Vision ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Peter Neilson ◽  
Megan Neilson ◽  
Robin Bye

We present a Riemannian geometry theory to examine the systematically warped geometry of perceived visual space attributable to the size–distance relationship of retinal images associated with the optics of the human eye. Starting with the notion of a vector field of retinal image features over cortical hypercolumns endowed with a metric compatible with that size–distance relationship, we use Riemannian geometry to construct a place-encoded theory of spatial representation within the human visual system. The theory draws on the concepts of geodesic spray fields, covariant derivatives, geodesics, Christoffel symbols, curvature tensors, vector bundles and fibre bundles to produce a neurally-feasible geometric theory of visuospatial memory. The characteristics of perceived 3D visual space are examined by means of a series of simulations around the egocentre. Perceptions of size and shape are elucidated by the geometry as are the removal of occlusions and the generation of 3D images of objects. Predictions of the theory are compared with experimental observations in the literature. We hold that the variety of reported geometries is accounted for by cognitive perturbations of the invariant physically-determined geometry derived here. When combined with previous description of the Riemannian geometry of human movement this work promises to account for the non-linear dynamical invertible visual-proprioceptive maps and selection of task-compatible movement synergies required for the planning and execution of visuomotor tasks.


1999 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 909-924 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akiyuki Anzai ◽  
Izumi Ohzawa ◽  
Ralph D. Freeman

Complex cells in the striate cortex exhibit extensive spatiotemporal nonlinearities, presumably due to a convergence of various subunits. Because these subunits essentially determine many aspects of a complex cell receptive field (RF), such as tuning for orientation, spatial frequency, and binocular disparity, examination of the RF properties of subunits is important for understanding functional roles of complex cells. Although monocular aspects of these subunits have been studied, little is known about their binocular properties. Using a sophisticated RF mapping technique that employs binary m-sequences, we have examined binocular interactions exhibited by complex cells in the cat’s striate cortex and the binocular RF properties of their underlying functional subunits. We find that binocular interaction RFs of complex cells exhibit subregions that are elongated along the frontoparallel axis at different binocular disparities. Therefore responses of complex cells are largely independent of monocular stimulus position or phase as long as the binocular disparity of the stimulus is kept constant. The binocular interaction RF is well described by a sum of binocular interaction RFs of underlying functional subunits, which exhibit simple cell-like RFs and a preference for different monocular phases but the same binocular disparity. For more than half of the complex cells examined, subunits of each cell are consistent with the characteristics specified by an energy model, with respect to the number of subunits as well as relationships between the subunit properties. Subunits exhibit RF binocular disparities that are largely consistent with a phase mechanism for encoding binocular disparity. These results indicate that binocular interactions of complex cells are derived from simple cell-like subunits, which exhibit multiplicative binocular interactions. Therefore binocular interactions of complex cells are also multiplicative. This suggests that complex cells compute something analogous to an interocular cross-correlation of images for a local region of visual space. The result of this computation can be used for solving the stereo correspondence problem.


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