scholarly journals Cross-dataset reproducibility of population receptive field (pRF) estimates and cortical magnification asymmetries

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc M. Himmelberg ◽  
Jan W. Kurzawski ◽  
Noah C. Benson ◽  
Denis G. Pelli ◽  
Marisa Carrasco ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Receptive Field ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Polar Angle ◽  
New York University ◽  
Retinotopic Maps ◽  
Human Connectome Project ◽  
Cortical Magnification ◽  
Size Estimates

AbstractPopulation receptive field (pRF) models fit to fMRI data are used to non-invasively measure retinotopic maps in human visual cortex, and these maps are a fundamental component of visual neuroscience experiments. We examined the reproducibility of retinotopic maps across two datasets: a newly acquired retinotopy dataset from New York University (NYU) (n=44) and a public dataset from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) (n=181). Our goal was to assess the degree to which pRF properties are similar across datasets, despite substantial differences in their experimental protocols. The two datasets differ in stimulus design, participant pool, fMRI protocol, MRI field strength, and preprocessing pipelines. We assessed the cross-dataset reproducibility of the two datasets in terms of the similarity of vertex-wise pRF estimates and in terms of large-scale cortical magnification properties. Within V1, V2, V3, and hV4, the group-median NYU and HCP vertex-wise polar angle estimates were nearly identical. Both eccentricity and pRF size estimates were also strongly correlated between the two datasets, but with a slope different from 1; the eccentricity and pRF size estimates were systematically greater in the NYU data. Next, to compare large-scale map properties, we quantified two polar angle asymmetries in V1 cortical magnification previously identified in the HCP data. The prior work reported more cortical surface area representing the horizontal than vertical visual field meridian, and the lower than upper vertical visual field meridian. We confirm both of these results in the NYU dataset. Together, our findings show that the retinotopic properties of V1-hV4 can be reliably measured between two datasets, despite numerous differences in their experimental design. fMRI-derived retinotopic maps are reproducible because they rely on an explicit computational model that is grounded in physiological evidence of how visual receptive fields are organized, allowing one to quantitatively characterize the BOLD signal in terms of stimulus properties (i.e., location and size). The new NYU Retinotopy Dataset will serve as a useful benchmark for testing hypotheses about the organization of visual areas and for comparison to the HCP Retinotopy Dataset.

scholarly journals Visual performance in behaving cats after prenatal unilateral enucleation

1993 ◽  
Vol 90 (23) ◽  
pp. 11142-11146 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Bisti ◽  
C Trimarchi
Keyword(s):  
Visual Acuity ◽  
Visual Field ◽  
Receptive Field ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Direction Selectivity ◽  
Visual Performance ◽  
Field Size ◽  
Electrophysiological Recordings ◽  
Severe Impairment ◽  
Orientation Columns

Prenatal unilateral enucleation in mammals causes an extensive anatomical reorganization of visual pathways. The remaining eye innervates the entire extent of visual subcortical and cortical areas. Electrophysiological recordings have shown that the retino-geniculate connections are retinotopically organized and geniculate neurones have normal receptive field properties. In area 17 all neurons respond to stimulation of the remaining eye and retinotopy, orientation columns, and direction selectivity are maintained. The only detectable change is a reduction in receptive field size. Are these changes reflected in the visual behavior? We studied visual performance in cats unilaterally enucleated 3 weeks before birth (gestational age at enucleation, 39-42 days). We tested behaviorally the development of visual acuity and, in the adult, the extension of the visual field and the contrast sensitivity. We found no difference between prenatal monocularly enucleated cats and controls in their ability to orient to targets in different positions of the visual field or in their visual acuity (at any age). The major difference between enucleated and control animals was in contrast sensitivity:prenatal enucleated cats present a loss in sensitivity for gratings of low spatial frequency (below 0.5 cycle per degree) as well as a slight increase in sensitivity at middle frequencies. We conclude that prenatal unilateral enucleation causes a selective change in the spatial performance of the remaining eye. We suggest that this change is the result of a reduction in the number of neurones with large receptive fields, possibly due to a severe impairment of the Y system.

Ferrier lecture - Functional architecture of macaque monkey visual cortex

1977 ◽  
Vol 198 (1130) ◽  
pp. 1-59 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Field ◽  
Receptive Field ◽  
Striate Cortex ◽  
Single Cells ◽  
Ocular Dominance ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Macaque Monkey ◽  
Area 17 ◽  
Orientation Specificity

Of the many possible functions of the macaque monkey primary visual cortex (striate cortex, area 17) two are now fairly well understood. First, the incoming information from the lateral geniculate bodies is rearranged so that most cells in the striate cortex respond to specifically oriented line segments, and, second, information originating from the two eyes converges upon single cells. The rearrangement and convergence do not take place immediately, however: in layer IVc, where the bulk of the afferents terminate, virtually all cells have fields with circular symmetry and are strictly monocular, driven from the left eye or from the right, but not both; at subsequent stages, in layers above and below IVc, most cells show orientation specificity, and about half are binocular. In a binocular cell the receptive fields in the two eyes are on corresponding regions in the two retinas and are identical in structure, but one eye is usually more effective than the other in influencing the cell; all shades of ocular dominance are seen. These two functions are strongly reflected in the architecture of the cortex, in that cells with common physiological properties are grouped together in vertically organized systems of columns. In an ocular dominance column all cells respond preferentially to the same eye. By four independent anatomical methods it has been shown that these columns have the form of vertically disposed alternating left-eye and right-eye slabs, which in horizontal section form alternating stripes about 400 μm thick, with occasional bifurcations and blind endings. Cells of like orientation specificity are known from physiological recordings to be similarly grouped in much narrower vertical sheeet-like aggregations, stacked in orderly sequences so that on traversing the cortex tangentially one normally encounters a succession of small shifts in orientation, clockwise or counterclockwise; a 1 mm traverse is usually accompanied by one or several full rotations through 180°, broken at times by reversals in direction of rotation and occasionally by large abrupt shifts. A full complement of columns, of either type, left-plus-right eye or a complete 180° sequence, is termed a hypercolumn. Columns (and hence hypercolumns) have roughly the same width throughout the binocular part of the cortex. The two independent systems of hypercolumns are engrafted upon the well known topographic representation of the visual field. The receptive fields mapped in a vertical penetration through cortex show a scatter in position roughly equal to the average size of the fields themselves, and the area thus covered, the aggregate receptive field, increases with distance from the fovea. A parallel increase is seen in reciprocal magnification (the number of degrees of visual field corresponding to 1 mm of cortex). Over most or all of the striate cortex a movement of 1-2 mm, traversing several hypercolumns, is accompanied by a movement through the visual field about equal in size to the local aggregate receptive field. Thus any 1-2 mm block of cortex contains roughly the machinery needed to subserve an aggregate receptive field. In the cortex the fall-off in detail with which the visual field is analysed, as one moves out from the foveal area, is accompanied not by a reduction in thickness of layers, as is found in the retina, but by a reduction in the area of cortex (and hence the number of columnar units) devoted to a given amount of visual field: unlike the retina, the striate cortex is virtually uniform morphologically but varies in magnification. In most respects the above description fits the newborn monkey just as well as the adult, suggesting that area 17 is largely genetically programmed. The ocular dominance columns, however, are not fully developed at birth, since the geniculate terminals belonging to one eye occupy layer IVc throughout its length, segregating out into separate columns only after about the first 6 weeks, whether or not the animal has visual experience. If one eye is sutured closed during this early period the columns belonging to that eye become shrunken and their companions correspondingly expanded. This would seem to be at least in part the result of interference with normal maturation, though sprouting and retraction of axon terminals are not excluded.

Receptive-field characteristics of neurons in cat striate cortex: Changes with visual field eccentricity

1976 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 512-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Wilson ◽  
S. M. Sherman
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Receptive Field ◽  
Striate Cortex ◽  
Ocular Dominance ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Direction Selectivity ◽  
Orientation Selectivity ◽  
Simple Cells ◽  
Complex Cells ◽  
Cat Striate Cortex

1. Receptive-field properties of 214 neurons from cat striate cortex were studied with particular emphasis on: a) classification, b) field size, c) orientation selectivity, d) direction selectivity, e) speed selectivity, and f) ocular dominance. We studied receptive fields located throughtout the visual field, including the monocular segment, to determine how receptivefield properties changed with eccentricity in the visual field.2. We classified 98 cells as "simple," 80 as "complex," 21 as "hypercomplex," and 15 in other categories. The proportion of complex cells relative to simple cells increased monotonically with receptive-field eccenticity.3. Direction selectivity and preferred orientation did not measurably change with eccentricity. Through most of the binocular segment, this was also true for ocular dominance; however, at the edge of the binocular segment, there were more fields dominated by the contralateral eye.4. Cells had larger receptive fields, less orientation selectivity, and higher preferred speeds with increasing eccentricity. However, these changes were considerably more pronounced for complex than for simple cells.5. These data suggest that simple and complex cells analyze different aspects of a visual stimulus, and we provide a hypothesis which suggests that simple cells analyze input typically from one (or a few) geniculate neurons, while complex cells receive input from a larger region of geniculate neurons. On average, this region is invariant with eccentricity and, due to a changing magnification factor, complex fields increase in size with eccentricity much more than do simple cells. For complex cells, computations of this geniculate region transformed to cortical space provide a cortical extent equal to the spread of pyramidal cell basal dendrites.

Indirect, across-the-midline retinotectal projections and representation of ipsilateral visual field in superior colliculus of the cat

1978 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Antonini ◽  
G. Berlucchi ◽  
J. M. Sprague
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Receptive Field ◽  
Superior Colliculus ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Optic Chiasm ◽  
Anterior Portion ◽  
Vertical Meridian ◽  
Contralateral Eye ◽  
Rostral Portion

1. In agreement with previous work, we have found that the ipsilateral visual field is represented in an extensive rostral portion--from one-third to one-half--of the superior colliculus (SC) of the cat. This representation is binocular. The SC representation of the ipsilateral visual field can be mediated both directly, by crossed retinotectal connections originating from temporal hemiretina, and indirectly, by across-the-midline connections relaying visual information from one-half of the brain to contralateral SC. 2. In order to study the indirect, across-the-midline visual input to the SC, we have recorded responses of SC neurons to visual stimuli presented to either the ipsilateral or the contralateral eye of cats with a midsagittal splitting of the optic chiasm. Units driven by the ipsilateral eye, presumably through the direct retinotectal input and/or corticotectal connections from ipsilateral visual cortex, were found throughout the SC, except at its caudal pole, which normally receives fibers from the extreme periphery of the contralateral nasal hemiretina. Units driven by the contralateral eye, undoubtedly through an indirect across-the-midline connection, were found only in the anterior portion of the SC, in which is normally represented the ipsilateral visual field. Receptive fields in both ipsilateral and contralateral eye had properties typical of SC receptive fields in cats with intact optic pathways. 3. All units having a receptive field in the contralateral eye had also a receptive field in the ipsilateral eye; for each of these units, the receptive fields in both eyes invariably abutted the vertical meridian of the visual field. The receptive field in one eye had about the same elevation relative to the horizontal meridian and the same vertical extension as the receptive field in the other eye; the two receptive fields of each binocular unit matched each other at the vertical meridian and formed a combined receptive field straddling the vertical midline of the horopter...

scholarly journals Picturing Peripheral Acuity

Perception ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 817-825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Anstis
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Magnification Factor ◽  
Cortical Magnification ◽  
Retinal Receptive Fields ◽  
Cortical Magnification Factor

The grain of the retina becomes progressively coarser from the fovea to the periphery. This is caused by the decreasing number of retinal receptive fields and decreasing amount of cortex devoted to each degree of visual field (= cortical magnification factor) as one goes into the periphery. We simulate this with a picture that is progressively blurred towards its edges; when strictly fixated at its centre it looks equally sharp all over.

scholarly journals A twisted visual field map in the primate cortex predicted by topographic continuity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsin-Hao Yu ◽  
Declan P. Rowley ◽  
Nicholas S.C. Price ◽  
Marcello G.P. Rosa ◽  
Elizabeth Zavitz
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Field ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Electrode Array ◽  
Extrastriate Cortex ◽  
Complex Type ◽  
Retinotopic Maps ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Array Recordings ◽  
Retinotopic Map

AbstractAdjacent neurons in visual cortex have overlapping receptive fields within and across area boundaries, an arrangement which is theorized to minimize wiring cost. This constraint is thought to create retinotopic maps of opposing field sign (mirror and non-mirror representations of the visual field) in adjacent visual areas, a concept which has become central in current attempts to subdivide the cortex. We modelled a realistic developmental scenario in which adjacent areas do not mature simultaneously, but need to maintain topographic continuity across their borders. This showed that the same mechanism that is hypothesized to maintain topographic continuity within each area can lead to a more complex type of retinotopic map, consisting of sectors with opposing field sign within a same area. Using fully quantitative electrode array recordings, we then demonstrate that this type of map exists in the primate extrastriate cortex.

scholarly journals Population receptive fields in non-human primates from whole-brain fMRI and large-scale neurophysiology in visual cortex in visual cortex

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Christiaan Klink ◽  
Xing Chen ◽  
Vim Vanduffel ◽  
Pieter Roelfsema
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Receptive Field ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Field Potential ◽  
Whole Brain ◽  
Network Nodes ◽  
Gamma Power ◽  
Retinotopic Organization ◽  
Brain Fmri

Population receptive field (pRF) modeling is a popular fMRI method to map the retinotopic organization of the human brain. While fMRI-based pRF-maps are qualitatively similar to invasively recorded single-cell receptive fields in animals, it remains unclear what neuronal signal they represent. We addressed this question in awake non-human primates comparing whole-brain fMRI and large-scale neurophysiological recordings in areas V1 and V4 of the visual cortex. We examined the fits of several pRF-models based on the fMRI BOLD-signal, multi-unit spiking activity (MUA) and local field potential (LFP) power in different frequency bands. We found that pRFs derived from BOLD-fMRI were most similar to MUA-pRFs in V1 and V4, while pRFs based on LFP gamma power also gave a good approximation. FMRI-based pRFs thus reliably reflect neuronal receptive field properties in the primate brain. In addition to our results in V1 and V4, the whole-brain fMRI measurements revealed retinotopic tuning in many other cortical and subcortical areas with a consistent increase in pRF-size with increasing eccentricity, as well as a retinotopically specific deactivation of default-mode network nodes similar to previous observations in humans.

scholarly journals Cortical Magnification in Human Visual Cortex Parallels Task Performance around the Visual Field

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noah C Benson ◽  
Eline R Kupers ◽  
Antoine Babot ◽  
Marisa Carrasco ◽  
Jonathan Winawer
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Field ◽  
Polar Angle ◽  
Monozygotic Twin ◽  
Human Vision ◽  
Retinal Cell ◽  
Vertical Meridian ◽  
Cortical Magnification ◽  
Cell Densities ◽  
And Behavior

Human vision has striking radial asymmetries, with performance on many tasks varying sharply with stimulus polar angle. Performance is generally better on the horizontal than vertical meridian, and on the lower than upper vertical meridian, and these asymmetries decrease gradually with deviation from the vertical meridian. Here we report cortical magnification at a fine angular resolution around the visual field. This precision enables comparisons between cortical magnification and behavior, between cortical magnification and retinal cell densities, and between cortical magnification in twin pairs. We show that cortical magnification in human primary visual cortex, measured in 163 subjects, varies substantially around the visual field, with a pattern similar to behavior. These radial asymmetries in cortex are larger than those found in the retina, and they are correlated between monozygotic twin pairs. These findings indicate a tight link between cortical topography and behavior, and suggest that visual field asymmetries are partly heritable.

scholarly journals Emergence of local and global synaptic organization on cortical dendrites

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan H. Kirchner ◽  
Julijana Gjorgjieva
Keyword(s):  
Receptive Field ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Back Propagation ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Visual Space ◽  
Synaptic Organization ◽  
Early Postnatal Development ◽  
Cortical Magnification ◽  
Stimulus Features ◽  
Species Specific

AbstractSynaptic inputs on cortical dendrites are organized with remarkable subcellular precision at the micron level. This organization emerges during early postnatal development through patterned spontaneous activity and manifests both locally where nearby synapses are significantly correlated, and globally with distance to the soma. We propose a biophysically motivated synaptic plasticity model to dissect the mechanistic origins of this organization during development and elucidate synaptic clustering of different stimulus features in the adult. Our model captures local clustering of orientation in ferret and receptive field overlap in mouse visual cortex based on the receptive field diameter and the cortical magnification of visual space. Including action potential back-propagation explains branch clustering heterogeneity in the ferret and produces a global retinotopy gradient from soma to dendrite in the mouse. Therefore, by combining activity-dependent synaptic competition and species-specific receptive fields, our framework explains different aspects of synaptic organization regarding stimulus features and spatial scales.

scholarly journals Modulation of shifting receptive field activity in frontal eye field by visual salience

2011 ◽  
Vol 106 (3) ◽  
pp. 1179-1190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilsaan M. Joiner ◽  
James Cavanaugh ◽  
Robert H. Wurtz
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Receptive Field ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Substantial Contribution ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Central Visual Field ◽  
Eye Field ◽  
The Stability

In the monkey frontal eye field (FEF), the sensitivity of some neurons to visual stimulation changes just before a saccade. Sensitivity shifts from the spatial location of its current receptive field (RF) to the location of that field after the saccade is completed (the future field, FF). These shifting RFs are thought to contribute to the stability of visual perception across saccades, and in this study we investigated whether the salience of the FF stimulus alters the magnitude of FF activity. We reduced the salience of the usually single flashed stimulus by adding other visual stimuli. We isolated 171 neurons in the FEF of 2 monkeys and did experiments on 50 that had FF activity. In 30% of these, that activity was higher before salience was reduced by adding stimuli. The mean magnitude reduction was 16%. We then determined whether the shifting RFs were more frequent in the central visual field, which would be expected if vision across saccades were only stabilized for the visual field near the fovea. We found no evidence of any skewing of the frequency of shifting receptive fields (or the effects of salience) toward the central visual field. We conclude that the salience of the FF stimulus makes a substantial contribution to the magnitude of FF activity in FEF. In so far as FF activity contributes to visual stability, the salience of the stimulus is probably more important than the region of the visual field in which it falls for determining which objects remain perceptually stable across saccades.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document