Response characteistics C/*349-64* A/Ogawa T, Karita K, Tsuchiya Y: Response characteristics of single neurons in the rabbit visual cortex.

Unitary discharges were extracellularly recorded from cortical cells in the rabbit's visual area. Most of the cortical units were responsive to large-field illumination which was turned on and off at about 0.8/sec. Response characteristics of cortical cells were largely similar to those of retinal ganglion cells . One hundred and twenty-nine units which were analyzed successfully were categorized into four classes according to the features of their receptive fields: simple, asymmetric , complex and compound. Especially, compound receptive fields were so named on the basis of the finding that the whole receptive field consisted of three separable complex fields. A columnar arrangement of cortical neurons was suggested on the basis of the fact that the localization of the receptive fields of units involved in a particular column was almost identical in the visual field. No other common properties to specialize the column was detected.. Most of the receptive fields of units which were localized in the visual streak were oval in shape with their long axis horizontal as described in retinal ganglion cells. It is likely that in the rabbit's visual cortex no more elaborate analysis is made on in-coming visual information, but rather some integrative action is carried out for further processing.