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Visual cortical simple cells: Who inhibits whom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 1999

ALAN B. SAUL
Affiliation:
Department of Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh

Abstract

Simple cells display a specific adaptation aftereffect when tested with drifting gratings. The onset of the response to each cycle of the grating is delayed after adapting, but the offset is unaffected. Testing with stationary bars whose luminance was modulated in time revealed that aftereffects occur only at certain points in both space and time. The aftereffects seen with moving stimuli were predicted from those seen with stationary stimuli. These adaptation experiments suggest a model that consists of mutually inhibitory simple cells that are in spatiotemporal quadrature. The inhibition is appropriately localized in space and time to create the observed aftereffects. In this model, inhibition onto direction-selective simple cells arises from simple cells with the same preferred direction.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
1999 Cambridge University Press

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