Orientation Preference Patterns in Mammalian Visual Cortex

Orientation Preference Patterns in Mammalian Visual Cortex A Wire Length Minimization Approach

In the visual cortex of many mammals, orientation preference changes smoothly along the cortical surface, with the exception of singularities such as pinwheels and fractures. The reason for the existence of these singularities has remained elusive, suggesting that they are developmental artifacts. We show that singularities reduce the length of intracortical neuronal connections for some connec...

Development of orientation preference maps in ferret primary visual cortex.

The development of orientation preference maps was studied in ferret primary visual cortex using chronic optical imaging of intrinsic signals. The emergence and maturation of the maps were examined over time in single animals. The earliest age at which cortical domains selectively responsive to particular stimulus orientations were observed varied considerably between individuals, from postnata...

Optimizing the Representation of Orientation Preference Maps in Visual Cortex

The colorful representation of orientation preference maps in primary visual cortex has become iconic. However, the standard representation is misleading because it uses a color mapping to indicate orientations based on the HSV (hue, saturation, value) color space, for which important perceptual features such as brightness, and not just hue, vary among orientations. This means that some orienta...

Development of orientation preference maps in ferret visual cortex

Altered visual experience induces instructive changes of orientation preference in mouse visual cortex.

Stripe rearing, the restriction of visual experience to contours of only one orientation, leads to an overrepresentation of the experienced orientation among neurons in the visual cortex. It is unclear, however, how these changes are brought about. Are they caused by silencing of neurons tuned to non-experienced orientations, or do some neurons change their preferred orientation? To address thi...