Prenatal and postnatal development of laterally connected orientation maps

Both environmental and genetic factors interact to produce the orientation maps found in the primary visual cortex of adult mammals. However, it is not clear how this interaction occurs during development, or whether both factors are crucial. Previous computational models have focused on either environmentally driven or genetically driven development alone. In contrast, we show that a two-stage model of development can account for a wider range of experimental data. The model explains how environmental and genetic information can be incorporated into the same neural hardware, using a common set of learning mechanisms. Our results suggest that while either environmental or genetically driven development is sufficient for maps and selectivity to form, prenatal activity speeds up early development and makes it more robust against environmental variation.