Spatial frequency characteristics of brisk and sluggish ganglion cells of the cat's retina.
Receptive fields of cat retinal ganglion cells were stimulated by a drifting sinusoidal luminance pattern of fixed (50%) contrast and the amplitude of the fundamental frequency component of response was determined as a function of spatial frequency. Frequency response functions for most cells were unimodal and skewed towards zero frequency when plotted on linear scales. At a fixed retinal location, cells of different classes had different frequency response functions. Heterogeneity within some of the classes could be largely removed by normalizing the axes, thus, revealing a common shape of function for the class. At a fixed retinal location, the maximum response obtained at each spatial frequency was always obtained from a cell of the brisk, rather than sluggish, classes. Spatial frequency resolution was highest for brisk-sustained cells and usually lowest for brisk transient cells.
D000818:Animals; D002415:Cats; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D012160:Retina / Q000502:physiology*; D012165:Retinal Ganglion Cells / Q000145:classification / Q000502:physiology*; D009435:Synaptic Transmission; D014794:Visual Fields