Contrast invariance of orientation tuning in cat primary visual cortex neurons depends on stimulus size

AbstractPrimary sensory areas of the mammalian neocortex have a remarkable degree of plasticity, allowing neural circuits to adapt to dynamic environments. However, little is known about the effects of traumatic brain injury on visual circuit function. Here we used anatomy and in vivo electrophysiological recordings in adult mice to quantify neuron responses to visual stimuli two weeks and three months after mild controlled cortical impact injury to primary visual cortex (V1). We found that, although V1 remained largely intact in brain-injured mice, there was ~35% reduction in the number of neurons that affected inhibitory cells more broadly than excitatory neurons. V1 neurons showed dramatically reduced activity, impaired responses to visual stimuli and weaker size selectivity and orientation tuning in vivo. Our results show a single, mild contusion injury produces profound and long-lasting impairments in the way V1 neurons encode visual input. These findings provide initial insight into cortical circuit dysfunction following central visual system neurotrauma.

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Temporo-nasally biased moving grating selectivity in mouse primary visual cortex

10.1101/708644 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Marie Tolkiehn ◽

Simon R. Schultz

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Spatial Frequency ◽

Primary Visual Cortex ◽

Moving Objects ◽

Direction Selectivity ◽

Orientation Tuning ◽

High Signal ◽

Forward Movement ◽

Upward Moving

AbstractOrientation tuning in mouse primary visual cortex (V1) has long been reported to have a random or “salt-and-pepper” organisation, lacking the structure found in cats and primates. Laminar in-vivo multi-electrode array recordings here reveal previously elusive structure in the representation of visual patterns in the mouse visual cortex, with temporo-nasally drifting gratings eliciting consistently highest neuronal responses across cortical layers and columns, whilst upward moving gratings reliably evoked the lowest activities. We suggest this bias in direction selectivity to be behaviourally relevant as objects moving into the visual field from the side or behind may pose a predatory threat to the mouse whereas upward moving objects do not. We found furthermore that direction preference and selectivity was affected by stimulus spatial frequency, and that spatial and directional tuning curves showed high signal correlations decreasing with distance between recording sites. In addition, we show that despite this bias in direction selectivity, it is possible to decode stimulus identity and that spatiotemporal features achieve higher accuracy in the decoding task whereas spike count or population counts are sufficient to decode spatial frequencies implying different encoding strategies.Significance statementWe show that temporo-nasally drifting gratings (i.e. opposite the normal visual flow during forward movement) reliably elicit the highest neural activity in mouse primary visual cortex, whereas upward moving gratings reliably evoke the lowest responses. This encoding may be highly behaviourally relevant, as objects approaching from the periphery may pose a threat (e.g. predators), whereas upward moving objects do not. This is a result at odds with the belief that mouse primary visual cortex is randomly organised. Further to this biased representation, we show that direction tuning depends on the underlying spatial frequency and that tuning preference is spatially correlated both across layers and columns and decreases with cortical distance, providing evidence for structural organisation in mouse primary visual cortex.

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How Noise Contributes to Contrast Invariance of Orientation Tuning in Cat Visual Cortex

Journal of Neuroscience ◽

10.1523/jneurosci.22-12-05118.2002 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 22 (12) ◽

pp. 5118-5128 ◽

Cited By ~ 83

Author(s):

D. Hansel ◽

C. van Vreeswijk

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Orientation Tuning ◽

Cat Visual Cortex ◽

Contrast Invariance

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Heterogeneity in local distributions of orientation-selective neurons in the cat primary visual cortex

Visual Neuroscience ◽

10.1017/s095252380000818x ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 509-516 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Pedro E. Maldonado ◽

Charles M. Gray

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Primary Visual Cortex ◽

Local Level ◽

Spike Trains ◽

Preferred Orientation ◽

Orientation Tuning ◽

Area 17 ◽

Average Difference ◽

Orientation Preference ◽

Neuronal Spike Trains

AbstractWe have employed the tetrode technique, which allows accurate discrimination of individual neuronal spike trains from multiunit recordings, in order to examine the variation of orientation selectivity among local groups of neurons. We recorded a total of 321 cells from 62 sites in area 17 of halothane-anesthetized cats; each site contained between three to ten neurons that were estimated to be less than 65 μm away from the tetrode tip. For each cell, we determined the orientation tuning in response to moving bars. Of the cells tested, 8.4% were unresponsive, 22.7% had no preferential response to any particular orientation, while 68.8% were tuned. The average difference in preferred orientation between cell pairs recorded at the same site was 10.7 deg, but the variance in preferred orientation differences differed significantly among sites. Some clusters of cells exhibited the same or nearly the same orientation preference, while others had orientation preferences that differed by as much as 90 deg. Our data demonstrate that the tuning for orientation is more heterogeneously distributed at a local level than previous studies have suggested.

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Orientation Tuning, But Not Direction Selectivity, Is Invariant to Temporal Frequency in Primary Visual Cortex

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.01224.2004 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 94 (2) ◽

pp. 1336-1345 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Bartlett D. Moore ◽

Henry J. Alitto ◽

W. Martin Usrey

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Primary Visual Cortex ◽

Visual Stimulus ◽

Visual Processing ◽

Cortical Neurons ◽

Temporal Frequency ◽

Direction Selectivity ◽

Orientation Tuning ◽

Orientation Contrast ◽

Wide Range

The activity of neurons in primary visual cortex is influenced by the orientation, contrast, and temporal frequency of a visual stimulus. This raises the question of how these stimulus properties interact to shape neuronal responses. While past studies have shown that the bandwidth of orientation tuning is invariant to stimulus contrast, the influence of temporal frequency on orientation-tuning bandwidth is unknown. Here, we investigate the influence of temporal frequency on orientation tuning and direction selectivity in area 17 of ferret visual cortex. For both simple cells and complex cells, measures of orientation-tuning bandwidth (half-width at half-maximum response) are ∼20–25° across a wide range of temporal frequencies. Thus cortical neurons display temporal-frequency invariant orientation tuning. In contrast, direction selectivity is typically reduced, and occasionally reverses, at nonpreferred temporal frequencies. These results show that the mechanisms contributing to the generation of orientation tuning and direction selectivity are differentially affected by the temporal frequency of a visual stimulus and support the notion that stability of orientation tuning is an important aspect of visual processing.

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Receptive field expansion in adult visual cortex is linked to dynamic changes in strength of cortical connections

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.1995.74.2.779 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 74 (2) ◽

pp. 779-792 ◽

Cited By ~ 90

Author(s):

A. Das ◽

C. D. Gilbert

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Receptive Field ◽

Primary Visual Cortex ◽

Visual Space ◽

Final Analysis ◽

Before And After ◽

On Line ◽

Adult Cats ◽

Visual Cortex Neurons ◽

Cortical Connection

1. Receptive field (RF) sizes of neurons in adult primary visual cortex are dynamic, expanding and contracting in response to alternate stimulation outside and within the RF over periods ranging from seconds to minutes. The substrate for this dynamic expansion was shown to lie in cortex, as opposed to subcortical parts of the visual pathway. The present study was designed to examine changes in cortical connection strengths that could underlie this observed plasticity by measuring the changes in cross-correlation histograms between pairs of primary visual cortex neurons that are induced to dynamically change their RF sizes. 2. Visually driven neural activity was recorded from single units in the superficial layers of primary visual cortex in adult cats, with two independent electrodes separated by 0.1–5 mm at their tips, and cross-correlated on-line. The neurons were then conditioned by stimulation with an “artificial scotoma,” a field of flashing random dots filling the region of visual space around a blank rectangle enclosing the RFs of the recorded neurons. The neuronal RFs were tested for expansion and their visually driven output again cross-correlated. After this, the neurons were stimulated vigorously through their RF centers to induce the field to collapse, and the visually driven output from the collapsed RFs was again cross-correlated. Cross-correlograms obtained before and after conditioning, and after RF collapse, were normalized by their flanks to control for changes in peak size due solely to fluctuations in spike rate. 3. A total of 37 pairs of neurons that showed distinct cross-correlogram peaks, and whose RF borders were clearly discernible both before and after conditioning, were used in the final analysis. Of these neuron pairs, conditioning led to a clear expansion of RF boundaries in 28 pairs, whereas in 9 pairs the RFs did not expand. RFs that did expand showed no significant shifts in their orientation preference, orientation selectivity, or ocularity. 4. When the RFs of a pair of neurons expanded with conditioning, the area of the associated flank-normalized cross-correlogram peaks also increased (by a factor ranging from 0.84 up to 3.5). Correlograms returned to their preconditioning values when RFs collapsed.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

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