Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T05:14:41.165Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Are the preferred directions of neurons in cat extrastriate cortex related to optic flow?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2009

Helen Sherk ,
Jong-Nam Kim  and
Kathleen Mulligan
Helen Sherk
Affiliation:
Department of Biological structure, University of Washington, Seattle
Jong-Nam Kim
Affiliation:
Department of Biological structure, University of Washington, Seattle
Kathleen Mulligan
Affiliation:
Department of Biological structure, University of Washington, Seattle
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It has been proposed that one area of extrastriate cortex in the cat, the lateral suprasylvian area (LS), plays an important role in visual analysis during locomotion (Rauschecker et al., 1987). Cells in LS reportedly tend to prefer directions along a trajectory originating at the center of gaze, and passing outward through the receptive-field center. Such directions coincide with the directions of image motion in an optic flow field, the pattern seen by locomoting observers when they fixate the point towards which they are heading (Gibson, 1950). We re-examined this issue for cells in LS with receptive fields in the lower visual field. Cells recorded posterior to Horsley-Clarke A2 showed a clear correlation between preferred direction and receptive-field location, but not that predicted: preferred directions were generally orthogonal to “optic flow” directions. Since these cells were all located posterior to those in studies showing a bias for “optic flow” directions, we hypothesized that there are two cell populations within LS, an anterior population that tends to prefer radial-outward directions, and a posterior population that tends to prefer directions orthogonal to radial. Data from earlier mapping experiments (Sherk & Mulligan, 1993) supported this idea.

Keywords

Optic flowLateral suprasylvian cortexExtrastriate cortexPreferred directionDirection-selective cells
Type
Research Articles
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 12 , Issue 5 , September 1995 , pp. 887 - 894
Copyright
copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Albright, T.D. (1989). Centrifugal direction bias in the middle temporal visual area (MT) of the macaque. Visual Neuroscience 2, 177–188.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blakemore, C. & Zumbroich, T.J. (1987). Stimulus selectivity and functional organization in the lateral suprasylvian visual cortex of the cat. Journal of Physiology (London) 389, 569–603.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brenner, E. & Rauschecker, J.P. (1990). Centrifugal motion bias in the cat's lateral suprasylvian visual cortex is independent of early flow field exposure. Journal of Physiology (London) 423, 641–660.Google Scholar
Duffy, C.J. & Wurtz, R.H. (1991). Sensitivity of MST neurons to optic flow stimuli. I. A continuum of response selectivity to large-field stimuli. Journal of Neurophysiology 65, 1329–1345.Google Scholar
Gibson, J.J. (1950). The Perception of the Visual World. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Gizzi, M.S., Katz, E., Schumer, R.A. & Movshon, J.A. (1990). Selectivity for orientation and direction of motion of single neurons in cat striate and extrastriate visual cortex. Journal of Neurophysiology 63, 1529–1543.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grant, S. & Shipp, S. (1991). Visuotopic organization of the lateral suprasylvian area and of an adjacent area of the ectosylvian gyrus of the cat cortex: A physiological and connectional study. Visual Neuroscience 6, 315–338.Google Scholar
Graziano, M.A., Andersen, R.A. & Snowden, R.J. (1994). Tuning of MST neurons to spiral motions. Journal of Neuroscience 14, 54–67.Google Scholar
Guedes, R., Watanabe, S. & Creutzfeldt, O.D. (1983). Functional role of association fibres for a visual association area: The posterior suprasylvian sulcus of the cat. Experimental Brain Research 49, 13–27.Google Scholar
Hamada, T. (1987). Neural response to the motion of textures in the lateral suprasylvian area of cats. Behavioral Brain Research 25, 175–185.Google Scholar
Lappe, M. & Rauschecker, J.P. (1995). Motion anisotropies and heading direction. Biological Cybernetics 72, 261–277.Google Scholar
Orban, G.A., Lagae, L., Verri, A., Raiguel, S., Xiao, D., Maes, H. & Torre, V. (1992). First-order analysis of optical flow in monkey brain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. 89, 2595–2599.Google Scholar
Palmer, L.A., Rosenquist, A.C. & Tusa, R.J. (1978). The retinotopicorganization of lateral suprasylvian visual areas in the cat. Journal of Comparative Neurology 177, 237–256.Google Scholar
Perrone, J.A. & Stone, L.S. (1994). A model of self-motion estimation within primate extrastriate visual cortex. Vision Research 34, 2917–2938.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, J.D., Cooper, M.L. & Blasdel, G.G. (1979). Improved use of tapetal reflection for eye-position monitoring. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science 18, 490–495.Google Scholar
Rauschecker, J.P., von Grunau, M.W. & Poulin, C. (1987). Centrifugal organization of direction preferences in the cat's lateral suprasylvian visual cortex and its relation to flow field processing. Journal of Neuroscience 7, 943–958.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Royden, C.S., Crowell, J.A. & Banks, M.S. (1994). Estimating heading during eye movements. Vision Research 34, 3197–3214.Google Scholar
Saito, H., Yukie, M., Tanaka, K., Hikosaka, K., Fukada, Y. & Iwai, E. (1986). Integration of direction signals of image motion in the superior temporal sulcus of the macaque monkey. Journal of Neurophysiology 6, 145–157.Google ScholarPubMed
Sherk, H. & Mulligan, K.A. (1993). A reassessment of the lower visual field map in striate-recipient lateral suprasylvian cortex. Visual Neuroscience 10, 131–158.Google Scholar
Spear, P.D. & Baumann, T.P. (1975). Receptive-field characteristics of single neurons in the lateral suprasylvian visual area of the cat. Journal of Neurophysiology 38, 1403–1420.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Toyama, K., Komatsu, Y. & Kozasa, T. (1986). The responsiveness of Clare-Bishop neurons to motion cues for motion stereopsis. Neuroscience Research 4, 83–109.Google Scholar
Turlejski, K. & Michalski, A. (1975). Clare-Bishop area in the cat: Location and retinotopic projection. Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis 35, 179–188.Google Scholar
Weyand, T.G. & Gafka, A.C. (1994). Corticotectal cells in areas 17 and PMLS of the cat. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts 20, 1740.Google Scholar
Zumbroich, T.J., von Grunau, M., Poulin, C. & Blakemore, C. (1986). Differences of visual field representation in the medial and lateral banks of the suprasylvian cortex (PMLS/PLLS) of the cat. Experimental Brain Research 64, 77–93.Google Scholar