Visual cortex neurons in monkey and cat: contrast response nonlinearities and stimulus selectivity

The contrast response functions of cat and monkey visual cortex neurons reveal two important nonlinearities: expansive response exponents and contrast gain control. These two nonlinearities (when combined with a linear spatiotemporal receptive field) can have beneficial consequences on stimulus selectivity. Expansive response exponents enhance stimulus selectivity introduced by previous neural interactions, thereby relaxing the structural requirements for establishing highly selective neurons. Contrast gain control maintains stimulus selectivity, over a wide range of contrasts, in spite of the limited dynamic response range and the steep slopes of the contrast response function.

[1]  D. G. Albrecht,et al.  Motion selectivity and the contrast-response function of simple cells in the visual cortex , 1991, Visual Neuroscience.

[2]  R. Shapley,et al.  Linear mechanisms of directional selectivity in simple cells of cat striate cortex. , 1987, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[3]  J. Movshon,et al.  Spatial summation in the receptive fields of simple cells in the cat's striate cortex. , 1978, The Journal of physiology.

[4]  R. Shapley,et al.  Quantitative analysis of retinal ganglion cell classifications. , 1976, The Journal of physiology.

[5]  D. Tolhurst,et al.  Evaluation of a linear model of directional selectivity in simple cells of the cat's striate cortex , 1991, Visual Neuroscience.

[6]  I. Ohzawa,et al.  The effects of contrast on visual orientation and spatial frequency discrimination: a comparison of single cells and behavior. , 1987, Journal of neurophysiology.

[7]  D. G. Albrecht,et al.  Spatial frequency selectivity of cells in macaque visual cortex , 1982, Vision Research.

[8]  D. G. Albrecht,et al.  Striate cortex of monkey and cat: contrast response function. , 1982, Journal of neurophysiology.

[9]  D. Heeger.  Normalization of cell responses in cat striate cortex , 1992, Visual Neuroscience.

[10]  A. B. Bonds.  Temporal dynamics of contrast gain in single cells of the cat striate cortex , 1991, Visual Neuroscience.

[11]  J. P. Jones,et al.  An evaluation of the two-dimensional Gabor filter model of simple receptive fields in cat striate cortex. , 1987, Journal of neurophysiology.

[12]  D. G. Albrecht,et al.  Cortical neurons: Isolation of contrast gain control , 1992, Vision Research.

[13]  R. Shapley,et al.  Directional selectivity and spatiotemporal structure of receptive fields of simple cells in cat striate cortex. , 1991, Journal of neurophysiology.

[14]  John H. R. Maunsell,et al.  Coding of image contrast in central visual pathways of the macaque monkey , 1990, Vision Research.

[15]  C. Enroth-Cugell,et al.  The contrast sensitivity of retinal ganglion cells of the cat , 1966, The Journal of physiology.

[16]  D. Heeger.  Half-squaring in responses of cat striate cells , 1992, Visual Neuroscience.

[17]  L. Palmer,et al.  Contribution of linear spatiotemporal receptive field structure to velocity selectivity of simple cells in area 17 of cat , 1989, Vision Research.

[18]  I. Ohzawa,et al.  Spatiotemporal organization of simple-cell receptive fields in the cat's striate cortex. II. Linearity of temporal and spatial summation. , 1993, Journal of neurophysiology.

[19]  J. Robson.  Frequency Domain Visual Processing , 1983 .

[20]  D. Heeger.  Modeling simple-cell direction selectivity with normalized, half-squared, linear operators. , 1993, Journal of neurophysiology.

[21]  G. ALsnEcHr,et al.  VISUAL CORTICAL RECEPTIVE FIELDS IN MONKEY AND CAT: SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL PHASE TRANSFER FUNCTION , 1989 .